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Heroes of the Nations 

Series of Biographical Studies presenting the 
lives and work of certain representative histori- 
cal characters, about whom have gathered the 
traditions of the nations to which they belong, 
and who have, in the majority of instances, been 
accepted as types of the several national ideals. 



12°, Illustrated, cloth, each, $1.50 
Half Leather, gilt top, each, $1.75 



FOR FULL LIST SEE END OF THIS VOLUME 



Iberoes ot tbe IRations 

EDITED BY 

Evelun Hbbott, flD.H. 

FELLOW OF BALLIOL COLLEGE, OXFORD 



FACTA DUCIS VfVENT, 0PER08AQUE 
GLORIA RERUM. — OVID, IN LIVIAM 269. 
THE HERO'S DEEDS AND HARD-WON 
FAME SHALL LIVE. 



OWEN GLYNDWR 



OWEN GLYNDWR 

AND THE LAST STRUGGLE FOR 
WELSH INDEPENDENCE 

WITH A BRIEF SKETCH OF WELSH HISTORY 

\ • 

*■- '. . 

BY 

ARTHUR GRANVILLE BRADLEY 

AUTHOR OF " HIGHWAYS AND BYWAYS IN NORTH WALES," " SKETCHES 

FROM OLD VIRGINIA," " THE FIGHT WITH FRANCE 

FOR NORTH AMERICA," ETC. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 

27 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET 24 BEDFORD STREET, STRAND 

1901 



THE tIBnARV OF 

CONGRESS, 
Two Coptea Reccived 

SEP. 12 1901 

COPVRWHT tHTRY 

CLASS CC/XXc. N» 
COPY B, 






COPYRIGHT, 1901 
BY 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



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PREFACE 

IF this little book purported to be a biography in 
the ordinary sense of the word, the scantiness of 
purely personal detail relating to its hero might 
be a fair subject of criticism. But men of the Glyndwr 
type live in history rather by their deeds, and the 
deeds of those they lead and inspire. This is pe- 
culiarly the case with the last and the most cele- 
brated among the soldier patriots of Wales. Though 
so little remains to tell us of the actual man himself, 
this very fact has thrown a certain glamour and 
mystery about his name even in the Principality. 
While numbers of well-informed Englishmen are in- 
clined to regard him, so far as they regard him at 
all, as a semi-mythical hero under obligations to 
Shakespeare for such measure of renown and im- 
mortality as he enjoys, if the shade of Henry the 
Fourth could be called up as a witness it would tell 
a very different story. It is at any rate quite cert- 
ain that for the first few years of the fifteenth cent- 
ury, both to England and to Wales, to friends and 
to foes, Owen was in very truth a sufficiently real 
personality. What we do know of him, apart from 
his work, might well suggest infinite possibilities to 
the novelist and the poet. It is my business, how- 



iv Preface 

ever, to deal only with facts or to record legends and 
traditions for what they are worth, as illustrating 
the men and the time. 

Glyndwr is without doubt the national hero of 
the majority of Welshmen. Precisely why he takes 
precedence of warrior princes who before his day 
struggled so bravely with the Anglo-Norman power 
and often with more permanent success, is not now 
to the point. My readers will be able to form some 
opinion of their own as to the soundness of the 
Welsh verdict. But these are matters, after all, out- 
side logic and argument. It is a question of senti- 
ment which has its roots perhaps in sound reasons 
now forgotten. There are in existence several brief 
and more or less accurate accounts of Glyndwr's 
rising. Those of Thomas, written early in this cent- 
ury, and of Pennant, embodied in his well known 
Tours in Wales, are the most noteworthy, — while 
one or two interesting papers represent all the re- 
cent contributions to the subject. There has not 
hitherto, however, been any attempt to collect in 
book form all that is known of this celebrated Welsh- 
man and the movement he headed. I have, there- 
fore, good reason to believe that the mere collection 
and arrangement of this in one accessible and handy 
volume will not be unwelcome, to Welsh readers 
especially. Thus much at least I think I have 
achieved, and the thought will be some consolation, 
at any rate, if I have failed in the not very easy task 
of presenting the narrative in sufficiently popular 
and readable guise. But I hope also to engage the 
interest of readers other than Welshmen in the story 



Preface v 

of Glyndwr and his times. If one were to say that 
the attitude of nearly all Englishmen towards Wales 
in an historical sense is represented by a total blank, 
I feel quite sure that the statement would neither 
be denied nor resented. 

Under this assumption it was thought well to at- 
tempt a somewhat fuller picture of Wales than that 
presented by the Glyndwr period alone, and to lead 
up to this by- an outline sketch of Welsh history. 
The earlier part, particularly, of this contains much 
contentious matter. But in such a rapid, superficial 
survey as will fully answer our purpose here, there 
has scarcely been occasion to go below those salient 
features that are pretty generally agreed upon by 
historians. The kind manner in which my High- 
ways and Byways of North Wales was received, not 
only by English readers but by Welsh friends and 
the Welsh press, makes me venture to hope that my 
presumption as a Saxon in making this more serious 
excursion into the domain of Welsh history will be 
overlooked in consideration of the subject dealt 
with. 

A continuous intimacy of many years with the 
Glyndyfrdwy region begat a natural interest in the 
notable personage who had once owned it, and this 
gradually ripened into a desire to fill, however in- 
adequately, what seemed to me an obvious want. 
Before venturing on the task I took some pains to 
ascertain whether any Welsh writer had the matter 
in coiKemplation, and so far as information gathered 
in the most authoritative quarters could be effective 
it was in the negative. As this was at a time when 



vi Preface 

the Welsh people were considering some form of 
National memorial to Glyndwr, the absence both in 
fact and in prospect of any accessible memoir of 
him overcame what diffidence on racial grounds I 
had naturally felt and encouraged me in my desire 
to supply the want. 

A full list of the authorities I have consulted in 
the preparation of this work would, I have reason to 
understand, be too ponderous a supplement to a 
volume of this kind. Before noting any of them, 
however, I must first acknowledge the very great 
obligations I am under to Professor Wylie for his 
invaluable and exhaustive history of Henry IV. ; not 
merely for the information contained in the text of 
his book, but for his copious notes which have been 
most helpful in indicating many sources of informa- 
tion connected with the persons and events of the 
time. The following are some of the chief works 
consulted : Dr. Powell's translation of Humphrey 
Lloyd's History of Wales from the chronicle of 
Caradoc of Llancarvan, Ellis' original letters, Annales 
CambricB, Rymer's Fcedera, Williams' History of 
Wales, Warrington's History of Wales, Tyler's Henry 
v., Adam of Usk, Matthew of Paris, Hardyng's and 
other chronicles, Giraldus Cambrensis, the his- 
torians Carte, Walsingham, and Holinshed, Bridge- 
man's Princes of South Wales, Lloyd's History of 
the Princes of Powys Fadog, the lolo MSS., Owen's 
Ancient Laws and Institutions of Wales, Archce- 
ologia Cambrensis, the Brut, and, of course, the Rolls 
series. Among living writers who have been help- 
ful in various ways and have my best thanks are 



Preface vii 

Mr. Robert Owen, of Welshpool, the author of 
Powy stand, the Revd. W. G. Dymock Fletcher, of 
Shrewsbury, who has made a special study of the 
neighbouring battle-field ; Professor Tout, who has 
published an interesting lecture on Glyndwr and 
some instructive maps connected with the period ; 
and Mr. Henry Owen, the well known authority on 
Pembrokeshire and author of Gerald the Welshman ; 
nor must I omit a word of thanks to Mr. Owen 
Edwards, whose kind encouragement materially in- 
fluenced my decision to undertake this book. 

I am under most particular obligations to that 
well known Welsh scholar, Mr. T. Marchant Wil- 
liams, for suggestions and criticisms when the book 
was still in manuscript, and also to my lamented 
friend, the late Mr. St. John Boddington, of Hunt- 
ington Court, Herefordshire, for assistance of a 
somewhat similar nature. 

I am also greatly indebted to Miss Walker, of Cor- 
wen, for several photographic scenes in Glyndyfrdwy, 
which she most kindly took with an especial view to 
reproduction in these pages, and to Messrs. H. H. 
Hughes and W. D. Haydon, both of Shrewsbury, 
who rendered a like service in the matter of Glyndwr's 
other residence at Sycherth. 




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CONTENTS 



CHAPTER I 

PAGE 

INTRODUCTION I 

The Romans in Wales — Cunedda — Christianity — Arrival of 
Saxons — Their Conquest of Severn Valley — The Latin and 
Welsh Churches — The Three Divisions of Wales — Arrival 
of Danes — Strathclyde Britons Occupy Vale of Clwyd — 
Howel Dda and His Laws — Growing Intercourse between 
Welsh and Saxons — Llewelyn I. — Griffith ap Llewelyn — 
Harold's Invasions of Wales — Arrival of Normans — William 
I. and William Rufus in Wales — Norman Conquest of 
Glamorgan — The Flemings Settle in Pembroke — Wars be- 
tween Owen Gwynedd and Henry II. — Howel ap Owen 
Gwynedd — Dafydd ap Owen Gwynedd — Geraldus Cam- 
brensis on the Welsh — Religious Awakening in the Twelfth 
Century — Powys and the English Power — Llewelyn the 
Great, 1195 — King John's Invasion of Wales — Llewelyn re- 
cognised as Ruler of All Wales — Dafydd ap Llewelyn Suc- 
ceeds — He Persecutes his Brother Griffith and Makes War 
on the English — Henry III. in Wales — Llewelyn ap Griffith, 
Last Prince in Wales — Long Struggle against Henry III. 
and Edward I. — Death of Llewelyn and his Brother Dafydd 
— Final Conquest of Wales — Edward 1. Enacts Statutes of 
Rhuddlan, Builds Castles, and Provides for the Future Gov- 
ernment of the Country — Wales between the Conquest and 
Glyndwr's Rising. 



X Contents 

CHAPTER II 

PAGE 

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE, I359-I399 . . . .82 

Owen's Birth and Descent — His Youth — His Connection 
with Henry IV. and Richard II. — Sycherth — Glyndyfrdwy 
— Marriage — Family. 

CHAPTER III 

GLYNDWR AND LORD GREY OF RUTHIN, 14OO-I4OI . 1 10 
Lord Grey of Ruthin — Anglo- Welsh Towns — Owen's Un- 
successful Lawsuit — Contemptuous Treatment by the Eng- 
lish Court — Bad Faith of Grey towards Owen — Griffith ap 
David — Grey Appeals for Aid against Welsh Insurgents — 
Grey's Attempt to Capture Owen — Owen Assumes the Lead- 
ership — lolo Goch — Owen Raids Ruthin — The King In- 
vades Wales but to no Purpose — The Prince of Wales Left 
in Command at Chester — Owen Winters at Glyndyfrdwy. 

CHAPTER IV 

OWEN AND THE PERCYS, 1401 I35 

Hotspur in North Wales — Prince Henry — Conway Taken 
by the Welsh — Retaken by the English — Percy Acts against 
the Welsh — Owen Goes to Plimlimmon — War Carried to the 
South — Flemings of Pembroke Defeated by Glyndwr — 
Owen Triumphs in South Wales — King Henry again In- 
vades Wales — The King in Cardigan — Invasion without 
Result — The English Army Retires to Shrewsbury — Owen 
and the Percys — Welsh Social Divisions — Owen Captures 
Grey at Ruthin — Grey Held to Ransom. 

CHAPTER V 

THE KING AND HOTSPUR, 1402 ...... 163 

Portents — Bishop Trevor — Howel Sele — Mortimer Defeated 
at Pilleth, and Taken Prisoner — The King Refuses to Ran- 
som Mortimer — Glyndwr in Carnarvonshire — Great Invasion 
of Wales by King Henry — Magic and Tempests Overwhelm 
the English Advance — Defeat of the Scots at Homildon — 
Hotspur and the King Dispute about Scottish Prisoners — 
Mortimer Invites His Radnor Tenants to Join Glyndwr. 



Contents xi 

CHAPTER VI 

PAGE 

THE BATTLE OF SHREWSBURY, I403 . . . . 185 

The King in Need of Money — Prince Henry at Shrews- 
bury — He Destroys Owen's Property — Letter from the 
Prince Concerning this — Glyndwr in the Vale of Towy — 
Victory of Anglo-Flemings near Carmarthen — Urgent Ap- 
peal for Royal Assistance from Brecon — Petitions for the 
Same from Herefordshire — The Welsh Overrun Western 
Herefordshire — Glyndwr at Carmarthen — He Consults a 
Soothsayer — The Plot of the Percys — Battle of Shrewsbury 
— Glyndwr's Connection with the Movement — He Appears in 
Flint — The King Prepares for the Invasion of Wales. 

CHAPTER VII 

OWEN AND THE FRENCH, 1403-1404 . . .212 

Beleaguered Castles — The King Invades Wales — He 
Reaches Carmarthen and Hurries Home Again — Glyndwr 
Takes more Castles and harries Herefordshire — The 
French Land at Carmarthen — Anglesey — Carnarvon — Glyn- 
dwr Captures Harlech — He Calls a Parliament at Machyn- 
lleth — Davy Gam — Glyndwr Sends Ambassadors to Paris 
— Bishop Trevor Joins the Welsh — Herefordshire and the 
English Borders Ravaged — Urgent Appeals for Succour to 
the King — The Earl of Warwick Defeats Glyndwr — Glyn- 
dwr Gains a Victory — He Forces Shropshire to Make Terms 
— Owen's Court at Harlech — lolo Goch. 

CHAPTER VIII 

WELSH REVERSES, 1405 237 

Desolation of Wales — Owen's Methods of Warfare — Coun- 
try Houses of the Period — Welsh Rural Life and Population 
— Glyndwr Not a Rebel — Lady Despencer and the Young 
Princes — Prince Henry's Letter on the Battle — Welsh De- 
feated at Mynydd-y-PwU-Melyn — Owen's Brother Killed, 
and his Son Captured — The Percys Rise in the North — De- 
pression among Owen's Followers — Landing of the French 



xii Contents 

PAGE 

at Milford — The Allies March to Worcester — Battle of 
Woodbury Hill — Retreat of Franco- Welsh Army to Wales 
— King Henry Unsuccessfully Invades Wales — Cadogan 
of the Battle-axe — Departure of the French — Penabroke 
Makes Terms with Owen. 

CHAPTER IX 

THE TRIPARTITE INDENTURE, 1406 .... 263 
The Tripartite Indenture — Defeat and Execution of Lord 
Percy and Bardolph — Owen's Letter from Pennal to the 
King of France — The Papal Schism — Owen's Star Waning 
— Anglesey — Dejection in the Vale of Towy — Glyndwr's 
Lonely Wanderings — The Valle Crucis Story — The Ber- 
krolle's Story — lolo Goch's Lament. 

CHAPTER X. 

ABERYSTWITH. OWEN's POWER DECLINES, 1407-1409 284 
Owen's Movements Vague — The King Failing in Health 
but Anxious to Enter Wales — Preparations for Siege of 
Aberystwith — The King Shrinks from Going to Wales — 
A General Pestilence — Prince Henry Leads a Large Force 
to Aberystwith — Terms of Surrender Arranged — Agreement 
Upset by Owen's Sudden Appearance — Fall of Aberystwith 
and Harlech — Death of Mortimer — Owen Sinks into a 
Guerilla Leader — Pardons and Punishments — Death in Paris 
of Bishop Trevor. 

CHAPTER XI 

LAST YEARS OF Owen's LIFE, 1410-1416 . . , 300 

Harsh Laws Enacted against the Welsh — Davy Gam — A 
General Pardon Offered by Henry V. — Owen an Outlaw in 
the Mountains — Owen, Left Alone, Disappears from History 
— Henry V. Sends him a Special Pardon — Kentchurch 
orMonnington the Scene of Owen's Death — Some Remarks 
on his Policy. 



Contents 



Xlll 



CHAPTER XII 



CONCLUSION 

Wales after Glyndwr. 



PAGB 

310 



APPENDIX 



THE BARDS 



III 




ILLUSTRATIONS 



glyndwr's mount, glyndyfrdwy * Frontispiece 

CAREW CASTLE 

[From old print.] 

CORWEN AND PEN Y PIGIN, FROM THE DEE ' 

VALLEY CRUCIS ABBEY ^ . . . . 

CONWAY CASTLE ' 

DOLGELLY AND CADER IDRIS * . . . 



HOLT CASTLE 

[From old print.] 



POWYS CASTLE ...... 

[From an old engraving from painting by W, 
Daniells.] 

LLANGOLLEN AND DINAS BRAN ^ . 
SYCHERTH, FROM THE SOUTH * . . . 

RUTHIN CASTLE 

[From old print.] 
AN OLD STREET, SHREWSBURY * . 



40 

44 
54 
78 
82 

86 
92 

96 

100 



* Copyright, Miss Walker. 

^ Copyright, W. Davis. 

3 Copyright, F. Frith & Co. 



* Copyright, C. H. Young. 
^ Copyright, W. D. Hayson. 
® Copyright, J. Bartlett. 



XVI 



Illustrations 



CARCHARDY OWAIN, GLYNDWR's PRISON HOUSE AT 
LLANSANTFFRAID ' . . . . 

INTERIOR CONWAY CASTLE * ... 

OLD BRIDGE AT LLANSANTFFRAID, GLYNDYFRDWY 

LOOKING UP THE MAWDDACH FROM NANNAU ' 

OLD LODGE AT NANNAU, NEAR THE SITE OF THE 
" OAK OF DEMONS " ' . 

PILLETH HILL, RADNORSHIRE * 

SYCHERTH, FROM THE NORTH " . . 

hay' 

BATTLE-FIELD CHURCH, NEAR SHREWSBURY 

CARNARVON CASTLE * . 

MACHYNLLETH ^ 

OWEN'S COUNCIL HOUSE, DOLGELLY ' 

HARLECH " 

CAERPHILLY CASTLE ' . 

MANORBRIER CASTLE " . 

ABERYSWITH CASTLE * . 

MONNINGTON COURT AND CHURCH ' 



' Copyright, Miss Walker. 

* Copyright, F. Frith & Co. 
8 Copyright, C. H. Young. 

^ Copyright, R. St. John Boddington. 

* Copyright, H. H. Hughes. 
' Copyright, Marion & Co. 

•» Copyright, J. Bartlett. 
« Copyright, W. H. Bustin. 



130 
140 

166 

168 
176 
186 
190 
200 
218 
220 
224 
232 
244 
262 
290 
300 



Illustrations 



xvu 



PORCH OF MONNINGTON CHURCH AND GLYNDWR S 

REPUTED GRAVE ' 308 

PEMBROKE castle" ...... 312 

[From a photograph.] 

KENTCHURCH COURT, WITH GLYNDWR's TOWER ' . 314 



Copyright, Mrs. Leather. 
Copyright, F. Frith & Co. 
Copyright, W. H. Bustin. 




OWEN GLYNDWR 



CHAPTER I 

INTRODUCTORY SKETCH OF WELSH HISTORY FROM 

THE SAXON CONQUEST OF ENGLAND TO THE 

RISING OF GLYNDWR 



400-1400 

THE main subject of this book is the man whose 
memory, above that of all other men, the Welsh 
as a people delight to honour, and that period 
of Welsh history which he made so stormy and so 
memorable. But having what there is some reason 
to regard as a well founded opinion that (to the vast 
majority of English readers) the story of Wales is 
practically a blank, it seems to me desirable to pre- 
pare the way in some sort for the advent of my hero 
upon this, the closing scene of Cambrian glory. I 
shall therefore begin with a rapid sketch of those 
nine centuries which, ending with Glyndwr's rising, 
constitute roughly in a political and military sense 
the era of Welsh nationality. It is an audacious 



2 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

venture, I am very well aware, and more especially so 
when brought within the compass of a single chapter. 
Among the many difficulties that present them- 
selves in contemplating an outline sketch of Welsh 
history, a doubt as to the best period for beginning 
it can hardly be included. Unless one is prepared 
to take excursions into the realms of pure conjecture 
and speculation, which in these pages would be al- 
together out of place, the only possible epoch at 
which to open such a chapter is the Saxon conquest 
of England. And I lay some stress on the word 
England, because the fact of Wales resisting both 
Saxon conquest and even Saxon influence to any 
appreciable extent, at this early period, is the key- 
note to its history. 

What the British tribes were like, who, prior to 
this fifth century, lived under Roman rule in the 
country we now call Wales, no man may know. We 
do know, however, that the Romans were as firmly 
seated there as in most parts of Britain. From their 
strong garrisons at Chester, Uriconium, Caerleon, 
and elsewhere they kept the country to the west- 
ward quiet by means of numerous smaller posts. That 
their legions moved freely about the country we 
have evidence enough in the metalled causeways 
that can still be traced in almost every locality be- 
neath the mountain sod. The traces, too, of their 
mining industry are still obvious enough in the 
bowels of the mountains and even beneath the 
sea, to say nothing of surface evidence yet more 
elaborate. That their soldiers fell here freely in the 



1400] hitrodudory Sketch 3 

cause of order or of conquest is written plainly enough 
in the names and epitaphs on mortuary stones that 
in districts even now remote have been exposed by 
the spade or plough. But how much of Christianity, 
how much of Roman civilisation, these primitive 
Britons of the West had absorbed in the four cent- 
uries of Roman occupation is a matter quite outside 
the scope of these elementary remarks. Of civilisa- 
tion beyond the influence of the garrisons there was 
probably little or none. As regards Christianity, its 
echoes from the more civilised parts of the island 
had probably found their way there, and affected 
the indigenous paganism of the mountains to an ex- 
tent that is even yet a fruitful source of disagree- 
ment among experts. Lastly, as it seems probable 
that the population of what is now called Wales 
was then much more sparse in proportion to the rest 
of the island than in subsequent periods, its condi- 
tion becomes a matter of less interest, which is 
fortunate, seeing we know so little about it. 

With the opening of the fifth century the Romans 
evacuated Britain. By the middle of it the Saxon 
influx, encouraged, as every schoolboy knows, by 
the Britons themselves in their weakness, had com- 
menced. Before its close the object of the new-com- 
ers had developed and the " Making of England " 
was in full operation. 

For these same conquered Britons many of us, I 
think, started hfe with some tinge of contempt, 
mingled with the pity that beyond all doubt they 
fully merit. Mr. Green has protested in strong 
terms against so unjustifiable an attitude. He asks 



Owen Glyndwr [400- 



us to consider the condition of a people, who in a 
fiercely warlike age, had been for many generations 
forbidden to bear arms ; who were protected by an 
alien army from all fear of molestation, and encour- 
aged, moreover, to apply themselves zealously to the 
arts of peace. That men thus enervated made a 
resistance so prolonged is the wonder, not that they 
eventually gave way. If this nation, which resisted 
for a hundred years, is a fit subject for criticism, 
what can be said of their conquerors who, five cent- 
uries later, in the full enjoyment of warlike habits and 
civil liberty, were completely crushed in seven by a 
no more formidable foe ? 

While the pagan Saxons were slowly fighting their 
way across England towards the Severn and the 
Dee, the country about and behind these rivers had 
been galvanised by various influences into an alto- 
gether new importance. 

After the departure of the Romans, the Welsh 
tribes, less enervated probably than their more Ro- 
manised fellow-countrymen to the east, found in the 
Scots of Ireland rather than the Picts of the North 
their deadliest foes. It was against these western 
rovers that the indigenous natives of what for brev- 
ity's sake we are calling Wales, relearnt in the fifth 
century the art of war, and the traces of their con- 
flicts are strewn thick along the regions that face the 
Irish Sea. But while these contests were still in 
progress, three powerful tides of influence of a sort 
wholly different poured into Wales and contributed 
towards its solidity, its importance, its defensive 
power, and its moral elevation. 



1400] Introductory Sketch 5 

(i) Out of the north, from Cumbria and Strath- 
clyde, came the great prince and warrior Cunedda, 
whose family seem to have taken posses- 400-500, 

sion, with or without resistance, of large cunedda. 
tracts of Wales, Merioneth, Cardigan, and many other 
districts deriving their names in fact from his sons. 
His progeny and their belongings became in some 
sort a ruling caste ; a faint reflection of what the 
Normans were in later days to England. 

Cunedda is said to have held his Court at Carlisle, 
and to have wielded immense power in the north 
and north-west of Britain. If he did not go to Wales 
in person he undoubtedly planted in it his numerous 
and warlike offspring, who, with their following, are 
usually regarded as the founders of the later tribal 
fabric of Wales, the remote ancestors, in theory at 
any rate, of the Welsh landed gentry of to-day ; but 
this is a perilous and complex subject. 

(2) In this century, too, came the first wave of a 
real and effective Christianity, with its troops of mis- 
sionaries from Brittany and Ireland, in the 

1 /• 1 • 1 CO Christianity. 

front rank of which stand the names of St. 
David and Germanus or Garmon, Bishop of Auxerre. 
The latter is generally credited with the organisation 
of the Welsh Church, hitherto so vague and unde- 
fined. It was, at any rate, during this period, that 
the Church assumed definite territorial form, and 
that the Welsh diocese and the Welsh parish, their 
boundaries roughly approximating to the present 
ones, came into existence. Through the fifth, 
sixth, and well into the seventh century, church 
building and religious activity of all kinds flourished 



6 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

marvellously in Wales; while Christianity was being 
steadily and ruthlessly stamped out over the rest of 
Britain by the advancing pagans, native chieftains 
vied with foreign ecclesiastics in building churches, 
cathedrals, and cells; and great monastic houses 
arose, of which Bangor Iscoed, on the Dee, with its 
two or three thousand inmates, was the most notable. 
The mountainous region that in former days had 
been among those least influenced by it M-^as now 
the hope of the island, the seat of religious fervour, 
the goal of the foreign missionary and the wandering 
saint. 

(3) The third, and perhaps not the least powerful, 
factor in the making of Wales was the advance of the 
Arrival of the Saxons. After their great victory of De- 
saxons, 577. orham they destroyed the British strong- 
holds of Bath, Gloucester, and Cirencester, and about 
the year 577, or 130 years after their first landing 
in Britain, they appeared on the Severn, The 
exact fate or disposal of the natives, whom with 
ceaseless fighting they thus drove before them, is a 
matter of perennial controversy. The ferocity of the 
conquerors, aggravated, no doubt, by the stubborn 
resistance of the conquered, is a fact beyond all 
question and should be emphasised, since its direful 
memories had much to do with the inextinguishable 
hatred that was felt for so many centuries, and to a 
certain degree is still felt, by many Welshmen to- 
wards their Saxon foes. It may fairly be assumed 
that the extirpation (though the term is much too 
strong) of the native stock Avas most marked in the 
eastern parts of Britain, and that as the tide of 



14001 Introductory Sketch 7 

conquest swept westward its results in this particular 
were much modified. But however great the slaugh- 
ter or however considerable the native element that 
was retained upon the soil by its conquerors, it is 
quite certain that the influx of British refugees into 
Wales throughout the sixth century must have been 
very large. Among them, too, no doubt, g^j^j^^ ^^^^^^ 
went numbers of men and women of ees in sixth 
learning, of piety, and sometimes perhaps t^entury, 
even of wealth, for one need not suppose that every 
Briton waited to be driven from his home at the 
spear's point. 

A fierce onslaught in great force brought the in- 
vaders to the walls of the Roman-British city of 
Uriconium, where Cynddylan, Prince of cynddyian at 
Powys, with all the power of Central uriconium 

-^ . ^ and Shrews- 

Wales, made a vain but gallant effort to bury. 

arrest the ruin : 

Cynddylan with heart like the ice of winter. 
Cynddylan with heart like the fire of spring. 

He and his brothers were at length all slain, and his 
armies routed. Uriconium or Tren was sacked, and 
higher up the valley the royal palace at Pengwern, 
as Shrewsbury was then called, was destroyed. 

These terrible scenes are described for us by 
Llywarch Hen, one of the earliest British bards, 
himself an actor in them, who thus laments over the 
wreck of Pengwern : 

" The Hall of Cynddylan is dark 
To-night, without fire, without bed ; 
I '11 weep awhile, afterwards I shall be silent. 



Owen Glyndwr [400- 



" The Hall of Cynddylan is gloomy 
To-night, without fire, without songs ; 
Tears are running down my cheeks. 

" The Hall of Cynddylan, it pierces my heart 
To see it roofless, fireless ; 
Dead is my chief, yet I am living." 

or again, on the destruction of Tren : 

" The eagle of Pengwern screamed aloud to-night 
For the blood of men he watched ; 
Tren may indeed be called a ruined town. 

" Slain were my comrades all at once 
Cynan, Cynddylan, Cyncraith, 
Defending Tren the wasted city." 

In a few years the Saxons were beaten back, and 
Pengwern, with the surrounding country, once more 
became British, and remained so till the days of 
OfTa, King of Mercia. 

By the close of the sixth century Christianity had 
been introduced by Augustine into the south- 
eastern corner of England, and there is no more 
suggestive scene in Welsh history than the famous 
meeting of the great missionary with the Welsh 
bishops on the banks of the Severn. It accentuates 
in a striking manner the cleavage between the 
Eastern or the Latin Church, and that of the West 
and of the Welsh. Augustine, about the 

Augustine o ' 

andthe Welsh year 6oi, frcsh from his victories over 
bishops, 01. paganism among the Kentish Saxons, and 
having journeyed far through still heathen regions, 
approaches these Western Christians with a kindly 



1400] Introductory Sketch g 

but somewhat supercilious and superior air. The 
seven Welsh bishops — or so-called bishops, for the 
full development of the of^ce as understood later 
was not yet completed — were ready waiting for 
him on the banks of the lower Severn. They were 
a deputation of the Welsh Church, and, seeming 
already to scent patronage in the air, were fully 
prepared to resent any sign of it in the Roman mis- 
sionary. The latter, it appears, knew very little 
about the Western Church, with its roots in Ireland, 
Armorica, and Gaul, and what he did know he did 
not like. 

The arrogance of Augustine fully justified the 
Welshmen's suspicions, and he still further roused 
their indignation by hinting that they should take 
their instructions and receive their consecration from 
Canterbury, as representing Rome. Coming from a 
man who appeared to them but the missionary 
bishop of a handful of recently converted barbari- 
ans, this was a little too much for ecclesiastics who 
had behind them three or four centuries of Christian- 
ity, and knew nothing whatever of the Latin Church. 
Augustine, too, spoke disparagingly of their customs, 
and with particular severity of the absence of celi- 
bacy in their Church. This must have touched them 
to the quick, seeing that numbers of the offices and 
benefices in the Western Church were more or less 
hereditary, and that even saintship was frequently 
a matter of family, the tribal sentiment being pre- 
dominant. All these things, together with their dif- 
ference in Easter observance and in shaving the 
head, horrified Augustine, and he spoke so freely as 



lO Owen Glyndwr [400- 

to put all hope of combination out of the question. 
Indeed, the Welsh divines were so offended that 
they refused even to break bread beneath the same 
roof as the Roman saint. At a second confer- 
ence Augustine, seeing he had gone too far, pro- 
posed that, even if they could not conform to each 
other's customs, they should at least combine in 
efforts to convert the rest of England. Such endea- 
vours did not commend themselves in the least to 
the Welshmen. Whatever missionary zeal may have 
existed among Welsh churchmen it did not include 
the slightest anxiety about the souls of the accursed 
conquerofs of Britain, the ruthless ravagers and de- 
stroyers of their once civilised and Christian country. 
It is probable that Augustine did not realise the 
fierce hate of the despoiled Celt towards the Saxon. 
At any rate his patience at length gave way, and as 
a parting shot he in effect told the Welshmen that 
since they shewed themselves so criminally careless 
about Saxons* souls, they should of a surety feel the 
prick of Saxon spears. This random threat, for it 
could have been nothing more, was strangely ful- 
filled within a few years' time, when the victory of 
the pagan Ethelfred at Chester, which sundered the 
Britons of Wales from those of North-Western Eng- 
land, culminated in the sacking of Bangor Iscoed 
and the slaughter of twelve hundred monks. 

This futile conference of 6oi marks the beginning 
of the long struggle of the Welsh or Ancient Brit- 
ish Church to keep clear of the authority 
of Canterbury, and it lasted for some 
five hundred years. Till the close of the eleventh 



1400] Introductory Sketch 1 1 

century the bishops of the four Welsh dioceses were, 
as a rule, consecrated by their own brethren. St. 
David's perhaps took rank as " primus inter pares " 
for choice, but not of necessity, for there was no 
recognised Welsh metropolitan. Ages afterwards, 
when Canterbury had insidiously encroached upon 
these privileges, the Welsh clergy were wont to 
soothe their wounded pride by the assurance that 
this transfer of consecration had come about as a 
matter of convenience rather than of right. Long, 
indeed, before the final conquest of Welshmen by 
Edward the First, their Church had been completely 
conquered, anomalous though such an inverted pro- 
cess seems, by Norman bishops. A Welshman, 
though his sword might still win him political recog- 
nition and respect, had little more chance of Church 
preferment in the thirteenth century than he had in 
the eighteenth or the first half of the nineteenth. 
As early indeed as 1180 that clerical aristocrat of 
royal Welsh and noble Norman blood, Giraldus 
Cambrensis, pertinently asks the same question 
which from generation to generation and from reign 
to reign through the Hanoverian period must have 
been on every native churchman's tongue in the 
Principality, " Is it a crime to be a Welshman ? " 

There is no occasion to enlarge upon the subtle 
methods by which the Norman Church anticipated 
the Norman sword in Wales. Sleepless t,. t *• a 

^ 1 ne L>atin and 

industry no doubt was one. Another British 

, 1 r , 1 . . Churches. 

was the agency or the newer monasteries, 

filled with Norman, English, and foreign monks and 

for the most part devoted to the Latin Church. 



1 2 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

Persistent denial of the validity of St. David's in the 
matter of consecration may in time, too, like the 
continuous drip of water on a stone, have had its 
effect upon the Welsh, even against their better 
judgment. On one occasion we know that some of 
their princes and nobles, stung by what they re- 
garded as excessive exactions on the part of the 
Church, stooped so far as to throw in the faces of 
their prelates the taunt that their consecration was 
invalid. Such an attitude did not tend to lighten 
the immense pressure which was exercised in favour 
of the supremacy of Canterbury ; and long before 
Welsh princes had begun to take orders from Nor- 
man kings, Welsh bishops were seeking consecration 
from Canterbury, unless indeed their thrones were 
already filled by Norman priests. 

It is not only the ecclesiastical but also the secular 
divisions of Wales, that in a great measure date from 
these fifth and sixth centuries. The three chief 
Kingdoms, or Principalities, into which the country 
was apportioned, stand out from these days with con- 
sistent clearness till they are gradually broken into 
Divisionsof fragments by the Norman power: On 
Wales. ^YiQ north was Gwynedd ; in the centre, 

Powys ; on the south, Deheubarth or South Wales. 
As St. David's was the premier see of the four Welsh 
dioceses, so Gwynedd was even more markedly the 
first among the three Welsh Kingdoms. Its ruler, 
when a sufficiently strong man to enforce it, had a 
recognised right to the title of " Pendragon " and 
the lip homage of his brother princes. When a 
weak one, however, filled the precarious throne, any 



1400] Introductory Sketch 13 

attempt to exact even such an empty tribute would 
have been a signal for a general outbreak. 

Gwynedd included the present counties* of Flint, 
Anglesey, Carnarvon, and most of Merioneth, to- 
gether with the northern part of Denbighshire. 

Powys cannot be so readily defined in a line or 
two, but, roughly speaking, it was a triangle or wedge 
driven through Central Wales to a point 

Powys. 

on the sea, with a wide base resting on the 
English border, the present county of Montgomery 
representing its chief bulk. Its capital was Peng- 
wern'or Shrewsbury, till the eighth century, when 
OfTa, King of Mercia, enraged at the inroads of the 
Welsh, gathered together his whole strength and 
thrust them permanently back from the plains of 
Shropshire to the rampart of hills along whose crests 
he made the famous Dyke that bears his name. 
Thenceforward Mathraval, and subsequently Welsh- 
pool, became the abode of the Princes of Powys. 



* The present counties of Wales were not in existence as such till 
after the final conquest by Edward I. Even then, as we shall see, 
only six were created ; the larger part of the Principality retaining its 
feudal lordships until the reign of Henry VIII. There were ancient 
subdivisions of the three Welsh Kingdoms ruled over by petty 
Princes owing allegiance to their immediate overlord ; and their 
names still survive in those of modern counties or districts. Cere- 
digion, for instance, remains as Cardigan, Morganwg as Glamorgan, 
while the vale of Edeyrnion and the county of Merioneth still pre- 
serve the memory of two sons of the conquering Cunedda. But the 
units of old Welsh delimitation were the " Cantrefs " and the " Com- 
motes," which even to this day are often used for purposes of descrip- 
tion, as well as occasionally for ecclesiastical and political divisions. 
Of Cantrefs there would be something like three to the modern 
county, while each " Cantref " again consisted of two " Commotes." 



14 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

The Southern Kingdom, or Deheubarth, was also 

something of a triangle, but reversely placed to that 

of Powys, its point lying on the EngHsh 

border, and its broad base stretching along 

the Irish Sea from the mouth of the Dovey to the 

capes of Pembroke. 

Of these three divisions, Powys, as will be obvi- 
ous even from the brief and crude description of its 
boundaries here given, had the greatest difificulty in 
holding its own against both Saxon and Norman. 
South Wales, on the other hand, was the thorniest 
crown, for it included to a greater degree than the 
others semi-independent chieftains, such as those of 
Morganwg and Cardigan, who were inchned to pay 
their tribute and their homage only when their over- 
lord, who held his Court at Dynevor on the Towy, 
was strong enough to enforce them. 

Thus for nearly seven centuries there were sepa- 
rate sources of strife in Wales, and three distinct 
Warfare in classes of warfare. First there came the 
Wales. meritorious defence of the country against 

Saxon, Dane, and Norman, in which, upon the whole, 
there was much creditable unanimity. Secondly, 
during the lulls from foreign invasion, there was 
almost constant strife between North and South, 
Powys holding as it were the balance of power 
between them. Lastly there were the purely pro- 
vincial quarrels, when heady chieftains fell out with 
their superiors, a form of entertainment to which 
South Wales, as I have already remarked, was pecul- 
iarly prone. 

But, after all, it is not quite accurate to give such 



1400] Introductory Sketch 15 

emphasis to the existence and definition of the three 
Kingdoms till the death of Roderic the Great in 
877. Several kings had essayed with vary- Roderic jj. 
ing success to rule all Wales, but it was videswaies, 
Roderic who with scanty foresight finally ^^^" 

divided the country between his three sons, laying 
particular stress on the suzerainty of Gwynedd. The 
prevalent custom of gavelkind worked admirably, no 
doubt, in private life among the primitive Welsh, but 
when applied to principalities and to ambitious and 
bloodthirsty princelings the effect was usually disas- 
trous. To mitigate the dangers of his unwise par- 
tition, Roderic ordained a scheme which would have 
proved of undoubted excellence if the practice had 
only been equal to the theory. This was to the 
effect that if any two of the Princes of Wales quar- 
relled, all three were to meet in conclave in the wild 
pass of Bwlch-y-Pawl, through which the present 
rough road from Bala to Lake Vyrnwy painfully 
toils. Here they were to settle their difificulties 
peacefully ; and as it was presumed that only two 
would be parties to the quarrel, the third was to act 
as arbiter. For some centuries after this we know 
very well that the successive rulers of the three 
Kingdoms drenched Wales in blood with their quar- 
rels, but no tradition remains of a single conference 
at this wild spot among the hills, where the infant 
Vyrnwy plunges down through heathery glens and 
woods of birch and oak to the most beautiful arti- 
ficial lake perhaps in Christendom. 

The sins of omission must of necessity be infinite 
in dealing with so vast a subject in so compressed a 



1 6 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

space, and sins of omission, if not confessed in detail, 
sometimes affect the accuracy of the whole. Some- 
thing, for instance, ought to be said of the pastoral 
character, even in these early days, of all Wales, ex- 
cept perhaps Anglesey and West Carnarvon ; of the 
tribal organisation and the laws of gavelkind ; of 
the domestic and family nature of the Church, whose 
minor benefices at any rate were largely hereditary, 
and w^hose traditions were intensely averse to cen- 
tralisation. Among other things to be noted, too, is 
that Cadvan,who flourished in the seventh 

Cadvan. . i , , /- 

century, is generally regarded as the first 
genuine King of Wales, just as Roderic, nearly three 
hundred years later, was the great decentraliser. 

Another important date is that of 815, when a 
Saxon victory in Cornwall destroyed the last vestige 
815. Saxons ^^ British independence in England. For 
conquer hithcrto the Britons of Wales had by no 
means regarded themselves as the mere 
defenders of the soil they occupied. Steeped in the 
prophecies of Merlin and his contemporaries, which 
assured them of the ultimate reconquest of the 
whole island of Britain, they still cherished dreams 
which may seem to us by the light of history vain 
enough, but in the opening of the ninth century they 
still fired the fancy of a proud, romantic, and war- 
like race. 

Amid the conflicting evidence of rival chroniclers, 
Saxon and Welsh, it is not often easy to select 
Saxons made the victors in the long series of bloody 
little way. combats that continued throughout the 
centuries preceding the Norman Conquest. What- 



1400] Inti^oductory Sketch ly 

ever victories the Saxons gained, they were not 
much less barren than their defeats. Nominal con- 
quests were sometimes made of the more vulnerable 
districts, but they were not long maintained. At 
the next upheaval such loose allegiance as had been 
wrung from the provincial ruler was repudiated 
without a moment's thought, and often indeed the 
Saxons beyond the border found themselves in their 
turn fighting for hearth and home. 

In the ninth century the Danes appeared upon 
the scene. Though they harried Wales from time 
to time, both in the interior and on the The Danes, 
coast, their doings in England were so in- ^9°- 

comparably more serious that their Welsh exploits 
almost escape our notice. About the year 890, 
Danish outposts were established beneath the Breid- 
don hills, that noble gateway of mid- Wales, through 
which the Severn comes surging out into the Shrop- 
shire plains. Hither four years later came that 
formidable Danish leader, Hastings, with the Anglo- 
Danish forces of East Anglia and the north behind 
him. King Alfred, who was in the west, hastened to 
the scene and contributed to this strange spectacle 
of Saxons and Cymry fighting side by side. A deci- 
sive victory at Buttington, near Welshpool, rewarded 
their efforts, and though the struggle between Dane 
and Saxon was of great service to Wales by bringing 
a long immunity from the attacks of her hereditary 
foe, the Danish name calls for little more notice in 
Welsh annals. 

Seeing that vague dreams of reconquest still lin- 
gered among the Welsh, England's difficulty, to 



1 8 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

apply a familiar modern aphorism, should have been 
Cambria's opportunity. But readily as the three 
Welsh Princes, when their common country was in 
danger, were accustomed to combine, and efficiently 
as they raided in independent fashion across the 
English border, cohesion for a serious aggressive 
movement was almost hopeless. The moment that 
they were safe, they turned their arms against each 
other. The whole history of Wales, from the days 
of Roderic to those of Edward, with a few brief 
intervals, is one long tale of bloody strife. 

Nor were the Princes of Gwynedd, Powys, and 
Deheubarth always content to fight their quarrels 
out alone. As time went on they grew more accus- 
tomed to their Saxon neighbours, even if they did 
not love them more. Occasional amenities became 
possible. Intermarriages between the two aristocra- 
cies were not unknown, and when they had progressed 
No Saxon thus far a Prince of Powys would scarcely 
settlement, ^^vc been humau if he had not occasion- 
ally been tempted to call in Saxon aid against, his 
powerful rivals of Gwynedd or Deheubarth. But in 
spite of this dangerous game, played often enough 
and in later Norman days so fatal, the soil of Wales, 
so far as any serious occupation or dominion is 
imphed, remained inviolate throughout the whole 
Saxon period. 

One very narrow escape from a perman- 

Strathclyde ^ re- f i • i i 

Britons oc- cnt lodgment of Saxons, of which the 
cupy the Vale \Ygis]^ chroniclc tells us, should not per- 

ofClwyd. ' , . 1 

haps be passed over. It occurred m the 
days when Anarawd, one of the sons of Roderic, 



1400] Introductory Sketch 19 

was ruling over North Wales, at the close of the 
ninth century. More than a hundred years before, 
the Mercians, under Offa, had driven the Welsh 
finally from Shropshire and pressed them back be- 
hind the famous Dyke, whose clearly marked course 
still preserves the name of their warlike monarch. 
Th^ great Saxon victory on Rhuddlan March, at 
the mouth of the Clwyd, had occurred soon after- 
wards, and the wail of the defeated is still sounded 
in one of the most notable of Welsh airs. But 
Offa's Dyke had been since then considerably over- 
leaped, and the slaughter of Rhuddlan had been 
long avenged. When the descendants of these same 
Mercians poured once more into the pleasant country 
that lies upon the north shore between Chester and 
the Conway, the invaders of the " Perfeddwlad," as 
this region was then called (a term I shall use for 
convenience throughout this chapter), proved too 
powerful for Anarawd. He was driven back into 
Snowdonia and Anglesey, and the Saxons settled 
down in the Vale of Clwyd and upon either side of 
it, with a deliberation that, but for an opportune acci- 
dent, would have probably converted a large slice of 
North Wales into a piece of England for all time. 
But just as the Strathclyde Britons in the days of 
Cunedda had brought to Wales in the time of her 
need after the Roman departure a valuable 

1.1 1 Saxon settle- 

and warlike element, so their descendants, ment prevent- 
four centuries later, came just in time to ed by strath- 

. . . Clyde Britons. 

save what are now the Celtic districts of 

Flint and northern Denbigh from becoming Saxon. 

These people, hard pressed in north Lancashire, 



20 Owen Glyjtdwr [400- 

Cumberland, and even beyond, by Danes and Sax- 
ons, decided to seek a new home, and their thoughts 
naturally turned to Wales. They made overtures 
to Anarawd, begging that he would grant them of 
his abundance sufficient territory for their needs. 
But Anarawd's kingdom had, as we have seen, been 
sadly circumscribed, and his homeless subjects from 
the east of the Conway were already on his hands. 
A bright thought struck him, and he informed his 
Strathclyde kinsmen that if they could reconquer 
the Perfeddwlad they were welcome to it. Ne- 
cessity, perhaps, nerved the arms of the wanderers, 
and the Saxons, who, as Dr. Powell quaintly puts 
it, " were not yet warm in their seats," were driven 
Victory of headlong out of Wales. The Mercians, 
Anarawd, 878. howcvcr, wcrc not the kind of men to sit 
quietly down after such an ignominious expulsion ; 
they made vigorous preparations for taking their 
revenge, and retrieving their fortunes and their 
honour. The Strathclyde Britons sorely doubted 
their powers of resistance to the great force which 
now threatened them, so, carrying all their cattle and 
effects back again across the Conway, they begged 
Anarawd in his own interest as well as in theirs to 
support them. The Prince of Gwynedd rose nobly 
to the occasion and, joining all his forces to those 
of his immigrant kinsmen, they met the returning 
Saxon invaders near Conway, and in a pitched 
battle drove them back to the Dee with prodig- 
ious slaughter, never to return. So the country be- 
tween the two rivers was preserved to the Cymric 
race and saved from becoming, as for the moment 



1400] Introductory Sketch 21 

looked extremely probable, another Cheshire or 
Shropshire. 

Anarawd, however, could not rest content with 
his triumph over the Saxons. As an illustration of 
the thirst for war that seems to have been chronic 
with most of the Welsh Princes, it may be noted 
that, with the Saxons vowing vengeance on his 
borders, he did not hesitate to march into South 
Wales and make an unprovoked attack upon its 
Prince, his own brother. 

But with the death of Anarawd and his brothers, 
various contingencies, which need not detain us here, 
made Howel Dda, or Howel the Good, Howei Dda, 
both the heir and the acceptable ruler of 94°- 

all three provinces. His reign was unique in Welsh 
annals, for it was not only long, but almost peaceful. 
This excellent Prince turned his brilliant talents and 
force of character almost entirely to the civil and 
moral elevation of his people. He drew up his 
famous code of laws, which, as is sometimes asserted, 
unconsciously influence the legal instincts of remoter 
Wales even to this day. In the preparation of this 
great work he summoned his bishops and nobility 
and wise men to meet him at Ty Gwyn on the 
Towy, for it should be noted that this ruler of a 
temporarily united Wales was in the first instance 
Prince of Deheubarth. 

Here this select assembly spent the whole of Lent, 
fasting and praying for the Divine aid in ^j^^ j^^^ ^j. 
their approaching task. Howel then picked Howei Dda 
out from among them the twelve most 
capable persons, with the Chancellor of Llandaff 



22 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

at their head, and proceeded to examine in ex- 
haustive fashion all the laws of the Cymry. Of 
these they eliminated the bad, retained the good, 
and amended others to suit present requirements. 
This new code was then ratified by the entire as- 
sembly before it dispersed. Three copies were made, 
and it is significant of the change already creeping 
over the Welsh Church, that Howel and his four 
bishops are said to have journeyed to Rome and sub- 
mitted one of them to the Pope for his approval. 
The Laws of Howel Dda may be read to-day by any- 
one with access to a reference library. The rights 
of every class of person are herein clearly set forth, 
and the precise value of each man's life according to 
his rank, and of every animal's hide and carcase ac- 
curately defined. The tribal sanctity of land, too, is 
well illustrated by a law forbidding the owner of 
an estate to mortgage it to anyone but a kinsman. 
Books, harps, swords, and implements of livelihood 
were exempted from distraint, while among live stock 
horses were placed in the same category, as being 
necessary for defence. Suits in connection with land 
could not be heard between February and May, or be- 
tween May and August, since these were the periods 
of seed-time and harvest, while all cases touching in- 
heritance were to be heard by the King himself. The 
latter is pictured to us as sitting in his judicial chair 
above the rest of the Court, with an Elder upon either 
hand and the freeholders ranged upon his right and 
left. Immediately below the King sat the Chief Jus- 
tice of the Province, with a priest upon one side of 
him and the Judge of the Commote upon the other. 



1400] Introductory Sketch 23 

After hearing witnesses and taking depositions, the 
two judges and the priest retired to consider the 
verdict. This done, the King took counsel with 
them, and, if he agreed, delivered judgment himself. 
If the case was too involved, however, for a satisfac- 
tory decision, the matter was settled by the simple 
expedient of single combat. A fixed price, as I have 
remarked, was set upon almost everything, both liv- 
ing and inanimate. One is surprised, for instance, to 
find an apple tree worth 6od., and a tree „ , . ,. 

•i^ r 1 Value of arti- 

planted for shelter worth 24^., while a cies fixed by 
coracle is only worth Zd. A salmon net **°^^' ^'^*' 
is appraised at just double the last amount, while a 
spade, again, is rated at a penny only. Though the 
skin of an ox or hart is fixed at 8</. the near extinc- 
tion of the beaver is significantly shewn by its value 
of \2Qd. Dogs, too, vary most curiously on the list. 
A common cur is held at 4^., a shepherd dog at 6o</., 
and the best sporting dogs at four times the latter 
sum. There is special mention, too, of chargers, 
hunters, roadsters, pack-horses, and draught-horses 
for carts and harrows. Horses are not to be broken 
till their third year ; while three rides through a 
crowd is the legal test of " warranted broken." Cows 
and mares, too, are prohibited from ploughing. We 
learn also in this singular price-list the current value, 
among other things, of a battle-axe, a bow with 
twelve arrows, a white-hilted sword, a shield en- 
amelled with blue and gold ; of plaids, too, striped 
and chequered stuffs, mantles trimmed with fur, 
robes, coats, hose, buskins, shoes, gloves, caps, bon- 
nets, girdles, and buckles. 



24 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

There are stringent laws against cruelty to ani- 
mals and in favour of hospitality. Game laws ex- 
isted of the strictest kind, classifying every animal 
of the chase and dealing with the management of 
hounds, and the etiquette of hunting. For their 
ardour in these pursuits, the Welsh were distin- 
guished among nations, not being surpassed even 
by the Normans themselves. 

The customs obtaining in the royal household are 
tabulated in Howel Dda's code with extraordinary 
minuteness, and the duties of every official, from 
highest to lowest, strictly defined ; from the Chaplain, 
Steward, Judge, and Master of the Horse down to 
the porter and birdkeeper. The perquisites, it may 
be noted, of the Master of the Horse are all colts 
under two years old, taken in war, and all gold and 
silver spurs thus acquired ; those of the porter, 
every billet of wood he could snatch from a passing 
load, with one hand, as he held the gate with the 
other, and any swine out of a herd that he could lift 
breast high by its bristles only ! 

Of the bards there is so much to be said elsewhere 
that we need only remark here that the duties of the 
Bardd Teulu, or Poet Laureate, were to follow the 
army and sing the " Unbennaeth Prydain " or " Mon- 
archy of Britain " before, and if triumphant after, 
the battle ; to perform at all times before the Court, 
and also privately to the Queen, only in so low a 
tone as not to disturb the King and his courtiers. 
This illustrious functionary was valued at 126 cows. 

A remarkable official was the " Crier of Silence," 
who beat a particular pillar in the great hall with a 



1400J Introductory Sketch 25 

rod when the noise became excessive, and had for 
his perquisites the fines that were exacted for any 
such undue boisterousness. Strangest by far of all 
was the King's " footholder," whose duty it was to 
sit under the table at meals and nurse his Majesty's 
foot, and to " scratch it when required." 

Nor can we forget the " Pencerdd," the Chief of 
Song, who was of popular election and presided 
at the Bardic Gorsedd held every third year, and 
held only at AberfTraw in Anglesey, the royal resi- 
dence of Gwynedd ; for the Eisteddfodau were held 
by all the Welsh Princes apparently at will. The 
Pencerdd was expected to know by heart the pro- 
phetic song of Taliesin. He lodged in the quarters 
of the heir apparent, and was presented by the King 
with a harp and key. 

Howel the Good died about 950. With the divi- 
sions and disputes of his sons and nephews Wales 
quickly lost its unanimity, and once more Renewed 
the flame of war was lit from one end of conflicts, 950. 
the country to the other by these foolish broilers, in 
attempts to despoil each other of their respective 
portions. The question was at length settled for a 
while by a great battle at Llanrwst, where the men 
of North Wales utterly discomfited those of the 
South, pursuing them with fire and sword far beyond 
the northern boundaries of Deheubarth. 

Towards the close of the tenth century 
we begin to get glimpses of those ameni- tercoursebe- 
ties between Cymry and Saxon, which a *w'=^'> weish 

... . . and Saxon. 

now common religion, a common foe in 

the Danes, and considerable private intercourse, had 



26 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

rendered inevitable. We find King Eadgar himself, 
for instance, at Bangor, helping lago ap Idwal, Prince 
of Gwynedd, against his nephew Howel ap levan. 
Everything, however, being amicably arranged, the 
Saxon King actually remains in friendly fashion at 
Bangor, and bestows gifts and endowments upon its 
see. Finally the two recent disputants return with 
Eadgar to Chester, and take an oar in that celebrated 
crew of kinglets which rowed the Saxon 

Eadgar ° 

rowed by monarch upon the Dee. Gwaithvoed, 
Welsh Princes Pj-fnce of Powys, who was invited to assist 

on the Dee. . , . . , , . 

in this somewhat inglorious procession, 
seems to have been the only one of the Welsh 
Reguli who refused the honour. " Tell the King," 
said Gwaithvoed, " I cannot row a barge, and if I 
could, I would not do so, except to save a life, 
whether king's or vassal's." On being pressed by 
a second messenger from Eadgar, his brief answer 
was : " Say to the King, ' Fear him who fears not 
death.' " 

It is not easy to define the precise attitude of 
the Welsh Princes towards the King of England as the 
Saxon period drew towards its close. Though the 
ancient Britons had become crystallised into Welsh- 
men, the old tradition of the island as a whole with 
an " Emperor " in London, and a general scheme of 
defence against foreign foes, was not yet dead. The 
Saxons, though little loved, had become an accepted 
fact, and there seems to have been no particular re- 
luctance among the Welsh princes to pay lip homage, 
when relationships were not too strained, to the 
" King in London," and tribute, too, as representing 



1400] Introductory Sketch 2 J 

the ancient contribution to " the defence of the 
island." 

For the last hundred years prior to the Nor- 
man conquest, one follows the bloody path of 
Welsh history in vain efforts to find some Lieweiyni., 
breathing space, wherein rulers turned ^°°°- 

their attention to something besides the lust of 
power and the thirst for glory. It was about the 
year 1000 when the first of the three Llewelyns suc- 
ceeded to the throne of North Wales. Under a 
King whose title was absolutely indisputable, and 
who possessed some force of character, it seemed as 
if the sword was now for a season, at any rate, to re- 
main undrawn. But it was not to be ; for in no long 
time the throne of South Wales fell vacant, and 
there was, unhappily, no direct heir. So the nobles 
of the Province, fearing, and with some reason, that 
Llewelyn would seize the opportunity to attach the 
Southern Kingdom to his other dominions, brought 
forward a creature of their own, a low-born advent- 
urer, who claimed to be of the royal lineage. This 
precipitated the catastrophe which it was designed 
to prevent, and Llewelyn fell upon Deheubarth with 
the whole force of Gwynedd. The fight lasted 
through a whole day, and the slaughter was immense, 
but the Northerners again prevailed. 

But there were also years of peace under Llewelyn 
ap Seisyllt, and of conspicuous prosperity, so the 
chronicler tells us, in which " the earth brought forth 
double, the people prospered in all their affairs, and 
multiplied wonderfully. The cattle increased in 
great numbers, so that there was not a poor man in 



28 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

Wales from the south to the north sea, but every 
man had plenty, every house a dweller, every town 
inhabited." Llewelyn fell ultimately before Car- 
marthen, and his throne was seized by lago ap 
Idwal, a collateral relative. He in turn was quickly 
Griffith ap^ Overthrown and slain by Llewelyn's war- 
Lieweiyn. lij^g gon Griffith, who enjoyed what from 
a purely military point of view might be called a 
successful reign. 

The Danes at this time began again to make at- 
tacks on Wales, but were defeated in Anglesey, and 
again in the Severn valley. 

Flushed with victory, and without a particle of 
excuse, Griffith now turned upon South Wales, rav- 
aged it with fire and sword, and drove out 

Griffith ap , ° . ' 

Llewelyn at- its ncw Princc, Howel ap Edwy. Howel, 
tacks South however, came back with an army of 

Wales. _ ■' 

Danes and Saxons, so had times changed 
in Wales, but only to meet with disaster and defeat 
at the hands of the vigorous Griffith. Yet again the 
indomitable Howel returned with a fresh army to 
try his luck, and so certain was he this time of vic- 
tory that he brought his wife to witness it. But 
again disaster overtook him, and his wife, instead 
of sharing his triumph, was carried off to share his 
conqueror's bed. 

Thus rolls on the tumult and the turmoil of the 
old Welsh story. The wonder is when and how the 
laws of the wise and peaceful Howel Dda found 
scope for application, and we can only suppose that 
the partial nature of these fierce struggles atoned in 
some measure for their continuity. Yet through all 



1400] Introductory Sketch 29 

this devastation Church property, of which there was 
now a considerable amount and of a tangible kind, 
seems to have been well respected. The Danes 
alone were regardless of shrines and monasteries ; 
and we hear of them at St. David's and Llanbadarn 
and other sacred spots along the sea-coast doing wild 
work. 

The twenty years preceding the battle of Hastings 
were busy years in Wales, and the foremost name of 
that epoch in England came to be perhaps 
more dreaded among the native Welsh 
than that of any other Saxon since the days of Offa. 
But Harold, Earl of the West Saxons and com- 
mander of the English armies, got much Harold and 
deeper into Wales than Offa had ever sue- Griffith. 
ceeded in doing, and indeed came much nearer 
than any of his predecessors to a conquest of the 
country. Griffith ap Llewelyn, Prince of Gwynedd 
by right, and of all Wales by force, was, as we have 
seen, no mean soldier. He was Harold's adversary, 
and the last Welsh Prince to face the Saxon power. 
This, the final quarrel of five centuries of strife, was, 
for a wonder, not of Griffith's seeking. 

We have seen how greatly modified the cleavage 
between the two peoples had by now become. Inter- 
marriages had taken place in the higher ranks, alli- 
ances had been formed, and Saxon influences in 
matters such as land tenure and Church government 
had been sensibly felt beyond the Severn and the 
Dee. So now, while the shadow of the Norman in- 
vasion was hanging over unconscious England, Algar, 
Earl of Chester, falling out with King Edward, did 



30 Owen Glyndwr t400- 

nothing particularly unusual when he fled to the 
warlike son of the first Llewelyn, and tried to embroil 
him in his quarrel. Griffith was peacefully hunting 
at his second residence at Aber near Bangor, and 
had indeed made good use of a few years of peace, 
but he was not the man to turn a deaf ear to any 
prospect of a fight. The upshot was a very serious 
war, in which Griffith and his ally were for a long 
time singularly successful. They defeated Edwin of 
Mercia in a great battle near Welshpool ; they after- 
wards took Hereford, won a victory at Leominster, 
and penetrated as far as Wiltshire. 

A brief truce ensued with Harold, who had 
been opposing them, and then the struggle began 
Harold in afresh. The tables were now completely 
Wales. turned. Harold's memorable invasion 

of Wales took place, in which he was assisted to 
success by the many enemies Griffith had made in 
his high-handed annexation of Deheubarth. The 
Death of Grif. Welsh Princc, after a stirring reign of 
fith, 1061. thirty-four years, perished during this 
campaign of 1061 at the hand of a hired assassin. 
His head, like that of many another Welsh leader, 
was sent across the border in a basket, and received 
at Gloucester by Harold with much demonstrative 
satisfaction. The latter, in the meantime, had 
marched to the Conway, and afterwards through 
South Wales. He had been victorious everywhere ; 
and now nominated fresh rulers to the vacant 
thrones of Gvvynedd and Deheubarth, under prom- 
ise of vassalage to the English Crown. 

The tenure of the three Welsh Princes was always 



1400] Introductory Sketch 31 

complicated and, indeed, liable to fluctuation with 
the balance of power, both in Wales and across the 
border. In theory, Powys and South Wales owed 
lip homage and a nominal tribute to the Prince of 
Gwynedd as " Pendragon." The latter, on behalf of 
Wales, owed a similar service to the King of England 
and, as I have mentioned before, was not inclined 
to dispute it so long as his independence was re- 
spected. Harold's so-called conquest only altered 
matters to the extent of making the three Welsh 
provinces theoretically equal and individually vas- 
sals of the English Crown. This paper arrangement 
would have probably remained a dead letter or would 
have been maintained just so long as there was an 
arm strong enough to maintain it. But a people 
were coming to eliminate the Saxon as an aggressive 
power, and to take his place, — a people who would 
not be satisfied with lip homage and occasional 
tribute. 

The great struggle in England between Norman 
and Saxon seemed by the mere force of contagion 
to set the Welsh Princes once more by loee. weish 
the ears. Some of them, however, in ac- ^^'^ Normans, 
cordance with their generous tradition of loyalty 
to the soil of the Britain they had lost, joined 
the West Saxons in their resistance to this new and 
formidable foe. Others essayed to make use in 
their domestic quarrels of the crafty Norman, who 
was only too glad to get a finger so cheaply into the 
Welsh pie. 

The followers of William of Normandy, indeed, 
lost no time in turning their attention to Wales. 



32 Owen Glyjidwr t400- 

Within ten years of the battle of Hastings, — almost 
immediately, that is to say, after the completion of 
the conquest of England, — they began their ma- 
rauding expeditions across the border, and were not 
unnaturally surprised at finding themselves con- 
fronted by a people so entirely different from those 
they had just subdued. But these initial successes 
taught the Welsh nothing, and they still continued 
their fatal internecine strife. 

The first serious lodgments of the Normans were 
made at Montgomery, where a baron of that name 
The Normans built the castlc, whose fragments still look 
in Wales. down from their rocky throne upon the 
windings of the upper Severn. Rhuddlan, at the 
mouth of the Clwyd, the site of an even then an- 
cient fortress, was next occupied and strengthened. 
Flushed with their easy conquest of England, the 
Normans had already begun to regard Wales as if it 
also belonged to them ; and still the quarrelsome 
Welsh chieftains continued to engage these formid- 
able new-comers in their disputes. At Chester, 
Hugh Lupus, its Earl of famous memory, and the 
nephew of the Conqueror, held in secure confinement 
the person of the Prince of Gwynedd whom he had 
seized by treachery. He then proceeded to farm 
out the realm of the captive prince, but as he only 
received £40 as rental the sum is more eloquent than 
any words would be to express the nature of the 
hold he had won over it. It is more than likely the 
contractors had a bad bargain even at that figure. 

In the conspiracy of 1075, when William was on 
the continent, many of the Welsh nobles joined, and 



1400] Introductory Sketch 33 

had consequently their share of the hanging and 
mutilating that followed its discovery. Lupus, how- 
ever, marched an army through the North 

' 1 Lupus, Earl 

and built or rebuilt castles at Bangor, of Chester, in- 
Carnarvon, and Anglesey. He was close- '^J'^T ^°'"*'' 

° ^ Wales, 1075. 

ly followed by the Conqueror himself, who 
with a large force proceeded with little apparent 
opposition through the turbulent South, received 
the homage of its king, Rhys ap Tudor, and its petty 
Princes, and then repaired with great pomp to the 
cathedral of St. David's, at whose altar he offered 
costly gifts. This kind of triumphal progress, as the 
Saxons well knew, though the Normans had yet to 
learn the fact, did not mean the conquest of Wales. 
King William in this single campaign seems to have 
imbibed some respect for Welshmen, for he spoke of 
them on his death-bed as a people with whom he had 
"held perilous conflicts." 

Infinitely more dangerous to Welsh liberty was 
the experiment next tried by a native Prince of ac- 
quiring Norman aid at the expense of territory. 
The story of the conquest and settlement of Gla- 
morgan is such a luminous and significant incident 
in Welsh history, and was of such great future im- 
portance, that it must be briefly related. 

The present county of Glamorgan was represented, 
roughly speaking, in ancient Wales by the subking- 
dom, or, to use a more appropriate term, 
the lordship of Morganwg. It had ac- settlement 
quired its name in the ninth century »" 

, - , • 1 1 1 !■ • 1 Glamorgan. 

through the martial deeds of its then pro- 
prietor, " Morgan Fawr," or ** Morgan the Great." 
3 



34 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

Morganwg, though part of Deheubarth, was at times 
strong enough to claim something Hke independence, 
and indeed the uncertain relationships of the smaller 
chieftains of South Wales to their overlord at Dyne- 
vor may well be the despair of any one attempting 
to combine tolerable accuracy with unavoidable 
brevity. But these remarks are only relevant for 
the purpose of emphasising the comparative import- 
ance at all times in Wales of the country we call 
Glamorgan ; and this was due not only to its size 
and to its seacoast, but to its comparative smooth- 
ness and fertility. In the year 1091, in 
the reign of William Rufus, one lestyn, a 
descendant of Morgan the Great, was ruling over 
Glamorgan, and as he was upon anything but friend- 
ly terms with his feudal superior, Rhys ap Tudor, 
Prince of South Wales, he bethought him of calling 
in alien aid, a habit then growing lamentably com- 
mon among Welsh chieftains. 

The Saxons had ceased to exist as a military 
power, and the Normans stood in their shoes, lestyn 
lestyn and kncw nothing of Normans, but he had a 
Einion. friend named Eihion who was reputed to 

have had much experience with them. To Einion, 
then, he repaired and promised him his daughter's 
hand, which presumably carried with it some- 
thing substantial, if he would bring a band of Nor- 
mans to his assistance in his dispute with Rhys. 
Einion consented to be his intermediary and without 
much difficulty secured the services of Robert Fitz- 
hamon and twelve knightly adventurers who served 
under him. The Normans in due course arrived and 



1400] Introductory Sketch 35 

rendered lestyn invaluable assistance in resisting his 
lawful sovereign. They then, so runs the chronicle, 
having received their pay, quite contrary 

111 Fitzhamon. 

to Norman custom peacefully re-embarked 
at Cardiff and weighed anchor for home. But lestyn, 
before they had well cleared the harbour, was inju- 
dicious enough to repudiate the promise of his 
daughter to Einion, whereupon the exasperated 
princeling put to sea, interviewed Fitzhamon, and 
persuaded him to return with his friends and his 
forces and eject the faithless lestyn from his rich 
territory. One may well believe it did not take 
much to win over the Normans to so attractive and 
congenial an undertaking. At any rate they reversed 
their course with much alacrity, returned to Cardiff, 
ejected lestyn, and after some fighting, assisted by 
Einion's people, divided the province among them- 
selves, each building one or more great castles, whose 
ruins are notable features in Glamorganshire scenery 
to-day. The blood of Fitzhamon's knightly followers 
courses in the veins of many an ancient family of 
South Wales, and one of them at least is still directly 
represented in name as well as lineage. This con- 
quest must be placed among the earliest in Wales, 
and it became the type of many future Norman set- 
tlements, though it was the outcome of an incident, 
while the others were for the most part deliberately 
planned. The reign of Rufus was memorable for 
these filibustering expeditions. They were executed 
under the sanction of the King, who found in them a 
cheap method of granting favours to his barons, par- 
ticularly those who had perhaps not come out so 



36 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

well as they could have wished in the partition of 
England. They might, in short, take of Wales as 
William ' mucli as they could keep, subject only to 
Rufus holding what they acquired as feudatories 

of the King. There will be more to say 
about these Marcher barons later on. In the mean- 
time, Brecheiniog, or Brecon, had been also conquered 
by another Norman, Bernard de Newmarch, with a 
similar band of followers, and secured by a similar 
system of castle building. Montgomery and other 
points in North and South Wales had been occupied, 
but they were for the most part purely military out- 
posts. The occupation of Brecon and Glamorgan by 
a Norman aristocracy is a salient and permanent fac- 
tor in Welsh history. This does not, however, imply 
that such filibustering barons were allowed to settle 
quietly down in their seats. Before the end of the 
reign, indeed, they were driven out, and William 
Rufus himself, who marched through Wales more or 
less upon their behalf, had, after all, to retire discom- 
fited : but they were soon back again. It was not 
wholly by brute force that they held their own. 
Life would hardly have been worth living upon such 
terms, and as a matter of fact, so far as one can read 
between the lines of these old chronicles, there does 
not seem to have been at first the same antipathy 
between Norman and Welshman as had formerly ex- 
isted between Saxon and Welshman. Marriages car- 
Marriages ''yi^ig Wclsh property with them seem to 
with have been readily arranged. A singular and 

romantic instance of this was in the mat- 
ter of Coity Castle, whose ruined walls still hold 



1400] Introductory Sketch 37 

together near Bridgend, and of the Turbervilles who 
even yet, after all these centuries, retain their name 
and position in Glamorganshire. For Paine Turber- 
ville, one of Fitzhamon's twelve knights, having been 
by some mischance forgotten in the distribution of 
land, inquired of his chief where he was to look for 
his reward. " Here are arms and here are men," re- 
plied Fitzhamon ; " go get it where you can." So 
Turberville went to Coity, which was still uncon- 
quered, and summoned Morgan, the Welsh lord, to 
surrender it into his hands. Whereupon xurberviiie 
Morgan came out leading his daughter, atcoity. 
and passing through the army, with his sword 
in his right hand, came to Paine Turberville, and 
told him that if he would marry his daughter, and 
so come like an honest man into his castle, he 
would yield it to him ; but if not, said he, " let not 
the blood of any of our men be lost, but let this 
sword and arm of mine and those of yours decide 
who shall call this castle his own." Upon that Paine 
Turberville drew his sword, took it by the blade 
in his left hand and gave it to Morgan, and with his 
right hand embraced his daughter. After settling 
matters to the satisfaction of all parties he went to 
church and married her, and so came to the lordship 
by true right of possession ; and by the advice of 
his father-in-law kept under his command two thou- 
sand of the best of his Welsh soldiers. 

Turberville, having now achieved so secure a posi- 
tion without the aid of Fitzhamon, very naturally 
refused to pay him tribute or own him as his over- 
lord, but voluntarily recognised Caradoc, the son of 



38 Oiven Glyndivr [400- 

the dispossessed lestyn, as his chief. This caused 
unpleasantness, but Turberville, with his two thou- 
sand Welshmen and his father-in-law's help, was too 
strong for Fitzhamon, and he had his way. It must 
not, however, be supposed that these martial settlers 
as a class by any means followed the example of the 
later Norman adventurers in Ireland, and became 
" more Welsh than the Welsh themselves." They 
were too near their King, at whose will they held 
their lands, and not far enough removed from the 
centre of Anglo-Norman life, to throw of¥ its interests 
and lose touch with their connections. Neverthe- 
less the confusion of authority in South and Mid- 
Wales increased considerably as time went on ; for 
not only did Norman barons marry Welsh heiresses, 
but occasionally a Welsh chieftain would win back a 
Norman-Welsh lordship by marriage, and present 
the anomalous spectacle of a Welshman holding 
Welsh land as a direct vassal of the King of England 
in entire independence of his district Prince. But 
these occasional amenities among the higher aris- 
tocracy but little affected the mass of the Welsh 
people, who stood aloof with lowering and uncom- 
promising sullenness. 

It was this intolerance of foreigners, bred in the 
bone and blood of Welshmen, or this excessive 
Welsh and patriotism, call it what you will, that 
Norman. made possiblc their long and heroic re- 
sistance to the Norman yoke, and for so long up- 
held the tottering thrones of their not always honest, 
and always quarrelsome. Princes. They hugged 
their pedigrees and cherished their bards, who in 



1400] Introductory Sketch 39 

turn played with tireless energy upon the chords 
of national sentiment and martial memories. No 
transfer of land to Normans, whether due to the 
sword or to more peaceful methods, was regarded as 
otherwise than temporary. As in parts of Ireland 
at the present day, generations of occupation by an 
alien stock commanded no respect beyond what 
belonged to the force of ownership. The original 
owners might be long extinct in fact, but in the 
mind they were the owners still. The Anglo-Saxon 
has a short memory ; and is practical even in mat- 
ters of sentiment. Four or five generations are suf- 
ficient to eliminate the memory of the humble or 
alien origin of the parvenu, and are quite enough to 
fill his cup of social reverence to the brim ; perhaps 
fortunately so. The Celt, and particularly the 
Welsh Celt, is fashioned differently. With him the 
interloper remained an interloper far beyond his 
children's children, and this mental attitude had 
much to do with the facility with which a popular 
leader could at all times stir up strife in Wales, 
whatever might be the odds against success. 

We have seen, then, the first wedge of alien occu- 
pation driven into this hitherto virgin refuge of the 
ancient British stock. For we must remember that, 
in spite of continual warfare, the Saxons had made 
no impression calling for notice in a brief survey like 
this. We must remember, also, that the Norman 
settlements were wholly military. The followers 
that came with these adventurers were just sufficient 
to garrison their castles. They were but handfuls, 
and lived within or under the protection of the Nor- 



40 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

man fortress: their influence upon the blood of the 
country may, I think, be put aside with certain re- 
servations, as scarcely worth considering. 

The severance of half the present county of Pem- 
broke from Wales in the reign of Henry the First 
must by no means be passed over if one 
Pembroke 's to get a proper idea of what was meant 
and the ^y Walcs at the time when this story 

Flemings. . , . T;r. , • , 

opens. It was m this Kmg s reign that a 
large body of Flemings were flooded out in the Low 
Countries by a great inundation, and despairing of 
finding a fresh home in their own crowded father- 
land, they applied to the King of England to allot 
them territory out of his presumed abundance.* In 
their appeal the King saw another means of putting 
a bridle on the Welsh, at no expense to himself, to 
say nothing of the advantage of posing as a phil- 
anthropist. He granted therefore to the Flemings 
just so much of the south-western promontory of 
Wales as they could hold and conquer, together 
with the peninsula of Gower, which juts out from the 
coast of modern Glamorgan. Pembroke was the 
more important and populous colony of the two. 
The native inhabitants, it may be presumed, were 
few in the twelfth century ; at any rate the Flemings 
had no difficulty in driving them inland and form- 
ing a permanent settlement. There was no assimila- 
tion with the natives ; they were completely pushed 
back, and in a short time Normans came to the 



* Some accounts say that Henry first received them in England, 
but got uneasy at the number which accumulated there and ordered 
them all into south-west Wales. Small lodgments of Normans and 
other aliens would seem to have preceded the Flemings. 



1400] hitroductory Sketch 41 

assistance of the Flemings. The great castles of 
Pembroke, Manorbier, Haverfordwest, and Tenby 
were built, and speaking broadly the south-western 
half of the modern county of Pembroke became as 
Teutonic, and in time as English, as Wiltshire or 
Suffolk. Continual fighting went on between the nat- 
ive Welsh and the intruders, keeping alive the ani- 
mosity between the two races and laying the seeds 
of that remarkable cleavage which makes the county 
of Pembroke present to-day an ethnological curios- 
ity without a parallel in the United Kingdom. 

The Flemings, as English subjects and constantly 
reinforced by English arrivals, lost in time their 
nationality and their language, and became as thor- 
oughly Anglo-Saxon as the most fervent Salop- 
ian or the most stolid Wiltshireman. They remain 
so, in a great measure, to this very day. Intermix- 
ture with the Celtic and Welsh-speaking part of the 
county has been rare. The isolated position of 
further Pembrokeshire makes this anomaly still 
more pecuHar, cut off as it is from England by 
nearly a hundred miles of Welsh territory, and 
more particularly when the fact is remembered that 
for centuries there has been no religious or political 
friction to keep these two communities of a remote 
countryside apart. Somewhat parallel conditions 
in Derry or Donegal, though of much more recent 
origin, are far more explicable owing to the civil 
strife and religious hatred which are or have been 
rife there. Even so the mixture of Scotch-Irish 
Protestants with Celtic Catholics has, I fancy, been 
much greater in Ireland than that of the Anglo- 



42 Owen Glyndzvr [400- 

Fleming Protestants of further Pembroke and of 
Gower with their Welsh neighbours of the same 
faith " beyond the Rubicon " in the same counties. 

These conquests may, however, be regarded as 
constituting for some time the extent of soHd Nor- 
man occupation. The story of Wales is one long tale 
of continuous attempts by Norman barons on the 
territory of the Welsh Princes, varied by the serious 
invasions of English Kings, which were undertaken 
either directly or indirectly on behalf of their Nor- 
man-Welsh vassals. Upon the whole but slow 
headway was made. Anglo-Norman successes and 
acquisitions were frequently wiped out, for the time 
at any rate, by the unconquerable tenacity of the 
Welsh people, while every now and again some 
great warrior arose who rolled the whole tide of 
alien conquest, save always further Pembroke, back 
again pell-mell across the border, and restored Wales, 
panting, harried, and bloody, to the limits within 
which William the Norman found it. 

One of these heroic leaders was Owen ap GrifBth, 
Prince of Gwynedd, who arose in the time of Henry 

II. of England. Not only did he clear 
1156. ^ ^ 

North Wales of Normans, but he so ruth- 
lessly harried Cheshire and the Marches, and so 
frightened the Prince of Powys that the latter 

„ ,, .joined the Norman-Welsh nobles in a pet- 
Henry II. and-' ^ 

Owen Gwyn- itiou to the King of England begging 
'^**' him to come up in all haste with a strong 

force to their aid. Henry, under whom England 
was rapidly recovering strength and cohesion, now 
essayed that profitless and thorny path of Welsh 



1400] Introductory Sketch , 43 

invasion, which his predecessors, Norman and Saxon, 
had so often trodden, and his successors were so 
often and so vainly to tread. 

He marched with a large army to Chester and, be- 
ing there joined by the Prince of Powys and the 
Norman-Welsh barons, encamped on Saltney Marsh. 
Owen with the forces of North Wales had 
come out to meet him as far as Basing- featedby 
werk, and as the vanguard of the royal °wen Gwyn- 
army advanced against the Welsh through 
the wooded defile of Coed Eulo the sons of Owen 
fell suddenly upon it, and with great slaughter rolled 
it back upon the main force. The King, then taking 
the seashore route, made head for Rhuddlan at the 
mouth of the Clwyd. But near Flint, in another 
narrow pass, he met with even a worse disaster. 
For here his vanguard was again attacked, many of 
his knights and nobles slain, his standard overthrown, 
and he himself in danger of his life. Eventually he 
reached Rhuddlan, garrisoned it, came to terms with 
Owen, and went home again. But there were two 
fierce and uncontrollable Princes now in Wales : 
Owen himself, " Eryr Eryrod Eryri " — the " Eagle of 
the Eagles of Snowdon " — and Rhys ap Rhys ap Grif- 
Grififith, the scarcely less warlike ruler of *^*^- 

South Wales. The period was one of continuous 
conflict in Wales and on the border, and it ended 
in something like a national movement against 
all the centres of Norman power, both royal and 
baronial, that were sprinkled over the country. 
This was in 1 165, and Henry, vowing vengeance, ad- 
vanced once more to the Welsh border. He had 



44 Owen Glyndwr [4oo- 

learnt wisdom, however, in his former campaign, 

and moved cautiously to Rhuddlan in order to 

make a preliminary investigation of the 

Henry II. , Vr • t ■ , i 

again in State ot aflairs. It was evident that noth- 

waies, 1166. jpg j^y^ ^ great effort would be of any avail ; 
so returning toEngland he gathered a large army and 
sat down at Chester. In the meantime Owen Gwyn- 
edd as suzerain or Pendragon of Wales, with Rhys, 
Prince of Deheubarth, and even the two Princes of 
vacillating Powysland, which had recently been split 
in half, and in fact with the whole strength of the 
Battle of Cymry, raised the dragon standard at Cor- 
crogen. ^N&x\ on the Dee. The two armies met 

eventually upon the banks of the Ceiriog, just be- 
neath the hill where the Castle of Chirk, then called 
Crogen,* now lifts its storied towers. The slopes of 
the Welsh mountains, even to Snowdon itself, were 
in those days sprinkled freely, if not thickly clad, 
with timber, and a feature of this expedition was 
some two thousand woodcutters employed to open 
the country for Henry's army and secure it against 
those ambuscades in which the Welsh were so ter- 
ribly proficient. But Owen Gwynedd came down 
from the Berwyns this time to meet his foe and, as I 
have said, a long and fierce battle was waged in the 
deep valley of the Ceiriog. The Welsh were in the 
end forced to retreat, and recrossing the Berwyn 
they took post again at Corwen, and, as tradition has 
it, on the lofty British camp at Caer Drewyn on the 
north bank of the Dee. Henry followed and sat 

* This was a Welsh fortress on or near the site of the present castle, 
whose origin will be spoken of in another chapter. 



1400] Introductory Sketch 45 

down with his army on the high ridge of the Berwyn, 
above Pen-y-pigin, the river flowing through what 
was then no doubt a swampy valley between the 
two positions. It was the old story, a wearisome 
enough one in the long strife between England and 
Wales. Henry dared not advance in the face of the 
difificult country before him and the Welsh-Henry returns 
men's superiority in hill and woodland *° England, 
fighting. Moreover his provisions had run out, and 
to make matters worse the weather broke up, so 
there was nothing to be done but to march his great 
army home again. The Welsh Princes now attacked 
and destroyed many of the King's castles in the 
North, and on the border recovered Flint or Tegen- 
gle, which Henry had nominally annexed, and in the 
South sorely pressed the Norman barons in Glamor- 
gan, Brecon, and Gwent. But the old madness of 
greed and jealousy which in Welsh Princes seemed 
inseparable from success, now took possession of 
Rhys and Owen ; they turned on their late allies of 
Powys, fickle ones, no doubt, and divided their in- 
heritance between them. 

, As for Owen Gwynedd, we must leave him and his 
deeds to the fame which, wherever Welshmen con- 
gregate, endures for ever, and pass on to a brief men- 
tion of his son Howel, who has earned immortality 
in a curiously different field. Amid the Howeiap 
passions and storms of that fierce age in OwenGwyn- 
Wales, it is strange enough, not to find a 
poet-Prince, but to find one singing in such strains 
as did Howel ap Owen Gwynedd. Warlike ballads 
are readily conceivable in such an atmosphere as 



46 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

that in which Howel Hved, and of war and hunting 
he wrote. But he also wrote sonnets, many of which 
are extant, to the yellow bloom of the furze, the 
blossoms of the apple tree, the laugh of his bright- 
eyed sister, to fields of tender trefoil, and to night- 
ingales singing in privet groves. He shared the fate 
of so many Welsh Princes and fell by the dagger, 
the assassins being his half-brothers. Both he and 
his famous father were buried in Bangor Cathedral. 

It may be well to point out that one of the causes 
of this chronic strife between the Welsh Princes, be- 
sides the prevalent custom of gavelkind, was that of 
fostering out the children of the royal houses ; for 
when the inevitable struggle for the succession en- 
sued, each claimant was backed up and vigorously 
assisted by the whole interest of the family in which 
he had been reared. 

To another son of Owen Gwynedd belongs a tale, 
notable in Welsh tradition at any rate, if not in seri- 
Madoc ap ^^^ history. Madoc, who had for his por- 
owen Gwyn- tion the country lying round the western 
base of Snowdon, found the struggle for 
the possession of it perhaps too wearisome, for he 
manned a small fleet and sailed out over the western 
seas for many months till he discovered a strange 
Madoc's col- country, good in all things for the habita- 
ony in Mexico, tion of man. From this venture, so the 
" ^' legend runs, Madoc returned, and, collect- 

ing a following of three hundred men in North 
Wales, again safely crossed the Atlantic and there 
founded, in what is supposed to have been Mexico,* 

* If this were merely a fairy tale it would certainly be out of place 



1400] Introductory Sketch 47 

a colony of Welshmen, from whom sprang the royal 
dynasty of Montezuma. 

Dafydd, the usurping half-brother and murderer 
of the poet-Prince Howel, had better luck than he 
deserved. King Henry, now bent on making friends 
with the Welsh, particularly the North 
Welsh as being the most formidable and apOwen 
homogeneous, gave him in marriage his Gwynedd, 
sister Emma and with her the rich barony 
of Ellesmere. Troops from South Wales were al- 
ready helping Henry in Ireland, and now Dafydd 
with a large force of his own people crossed to Nor- 
mandy to fight the battles of his royal brother-in- 
law in that country. It is characteristic of Welsh 
politics that while Dafydd was in France, the only 
one of his brothers whom he had not killed or im- 
prisoned took occasion to seize Anglesey and the 
four Cantrefs that now make Carnarvonshire. 

Norman manners and customs seem about this 
time to have considerably infected the Welsh aris- 
tocracy. That celebrated ecclesiastic and author, 
Giraldus Cambrensis, comes upon the oiraidus 
scene at this close of the twelfth century, Cambrensis. 
and has much to tell us out of the fulness of his 
knowledge of Wales. He was of illustrious birth, 
half Welsh, half Norman, and Archdeacon of Here- 
ford, though his mere ofiflce by no means suggests 

here ; but as regards the Welsh colony it has been considered not 
wholly unworthy of the attention of some serious ethnologists. 
It may further be remarked, without comment, that a comparatively 
modern and (in the vulgar sense) popular short history of Wales treats 
the whole story as authentic fact without even a suggestion of any 
legendary attributes ! There we will leave it. 



48 Owen Glyiidwr [400- 

his importance, much less the importance he attrib- 
uted to himself. It is his entertaining descriptions of 
the Welsh life he knew so well that have immortal- 
ised him, and his mixed blood would seem to have 
endowed him with the impartiality which he pro- 
fesses. He was violently opposed among other 
things to the encroachments of the Norman Church 
in Wales ; for the Pope, as I have stated, had now be- 
come recognised as omnipotent, and Canterbury as 
the source of all authority. Giraldus strove hard to 
get St. David's created an Archbishopric, and to 
persuade the Pope to send thither his pallium, the 
symbol of consecration. Though it is true he was 
himself burning to be installed at St. David's, Giral- 
dus probably reflected the popular opinion of con- 
temporary Welshmen in favour of recovering the old 
independence of the Welsh Church. The Crusades 
were now at their zenith, and Archbishop Baldwin 
undertook at this time his famous progress through 
Wales on behalf of the holy cause. Giraldus ac- 
companied him as chaplain, interpreter, and friend 
on this protracted tour, and, happily for us, as special 
reporter too. The Archbishop's exhortations caused 
some passing enthusiasm throughout the country, 
though the practical results do not seem to have 
been considerable. Some say that Baldwin's main 
object was to hold high mass in St. David's Ca- 
thedral, and so put the coping-stone, as it were, on 
the annexation of the Welsh Church. 

As regards the Crusades the Welsh in the Middle 
Ages do not seem to have been great rovers or 
much given to doing business on great waters; 



1400] Introductory Sketch 49 

always, of course, excepting Madoc ap Owen 
Gwynedd, the discoverer of America ! 

" These people," says Giraldus, alluding to the Welsh, 
"are light and active, hardy rather than strong, and 
entirely bred up to the use of arms ; for not oiraiduson 
only the nobles, but all the people are trained the Weish 
to war, and when the trumpet sounds the hus- people, 

bandman rushes as eagerly from his plough as the courtier 
from his Court. They live more on flesh, milk and cheese 
than bread, pay little attention to commerce, shipping, 
or manufacture, and devote their leisure to the chase and 
martial exercises. They earnestly study the defence of 
their country, and their liberty. For these they fight, for 
these they undergo hardships, and for these willingly 
sacrifice their lives. They esteem it a disgrace to die in 
bed, an honour to die on the field of battle." 

" Their arms and their coats of mail," he goes on to 
tell us, " are light, so also are their helmets, and shields, 
and greaves plated with iron. The higher class go to 
war on swift and well-bred steeds, but are ready at a 
moment's" notice, should the nature of the ground re- 
quire it, to fight on foot as do the mass of their people. 
In times of peace the young men by wandering in the 
dense forests and scaling the summits of the highest 
mountains inure themselves to the hardships of war 
when the necessity arrives," 

They were addicted neither to gluttony nor drunk- 
enness, and could readily go for two days without 
food, eating in any case but twice a day. They 
could lie out, moreover, all night in rain and storm, 
if an enemy had to be watched, or an ambush to be 



50 Owen Glyndwr L400- 

laid. There were whole bands of the better-born 
young men whose sole profession was arms, and to 
whom free quarters were given upon all occasions. 
The Welsh among other things were a clean-shaven 
race, reserving only their moustaches, and keeping 
the hair of their head short. The teeth of both 
sexes too were a special matter of pride. On this 
account they even abstained from hot meats, and 
rubbed their teeth constantly with green hazel till 
they shone like ivory. "They have powerful under- 
standings, being much quicker at their studies than 
other Western nations, ready in speech and confid- 
ent in expressing themselves, even to the lowest 
class." Their love of high birth and long pedigrees 
was then as now conspicuous, and the tribal system 
though rapidly modifying under Saxon and Nor- 
man influences encouraged them to think much of 
their ancestors, and to be quick in avenging insults 
to their blood. This custom, indeed, was carried to 
such lengths, that the Welshman's tendency to 
family quarrels, coupled with his sensitiveness for 
the family honour, was neatly satirised by an old 
proverb which affirmed that he " loved his brother 
better dead than alive." 

Giraldus, who may be regarded as a well-informed 
neutral in the matter, criticises the injudicious 
manner in which war had hitherto been prosecuted 
against his countrymen. He deprecates, for instance, 
the use of heavy-armed soldiers and a profusion of 
cavalry, which the active Welshmen in their mount- 
ain country are easily able to elude and often to 
defeat. He declares that the only way to conquer 



1400] Introductory Sketch 51 

Wales would be by winter campaigns, when the 
leaves are off the trees and the pastures withered. 
"Then," he writes, " English troops must oiraiduson 
be pushed forward at all hazards, for even weish war- 

^ fare. 

if the first are slaughtered any number of 
fresh ones can be purchased for money ; whereas the 
Welsh are restricted in the number of their men." 
The question of commissariat, the crux of all Welsh 
campaigns in those days, seems to have escaped the 
notice of the clerical critic. 

Having thus descanted on their virtues, Giraldus 
now assumes the Anglo-Norman on the strength of 
his half blood, and enumerates their weak points. 

" The Welsh are flighty," he tells us, " and readily 
undertake things which they have not the perseverance 
to carry out. They have little respect for oaths, and not 
much for the truth, and when a good opportunity occurs 
for attacking an enemy they regard neither truces nor 
treaties. In war they are very severe in their first attack, 
terrible by th^ir clamour and looks, filling the air with 
horrid shouts and the deep-toned clangour of very long 
trumpets. Bold in the first onset they cannot bear a re- 
pulse, being easily thrown into confusion, as soon as they 
turn their backs. Yet though defeated and put to flight 
one day, they are ready to resume the combat on the 
next, neither dejected by their loss nor by their dishon- 
our ; easier in short to overcome in a single battle, than 
in a protracted war. Their great weakness after all," 
concludes Gerald, " lies in their internal jealousies. If 
they were inseparable, they would be insuperable, and 
above all, if instead of having three Princes they had 
but one, and that a good one ! " 



52 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

For their music this invaluable chronicler has no- 
thing but enthusiasm, dwelling upon the sweetness of 
their instruments, the harp and the " crwth " (a 
primitive violin) in particular, and, above all, on their 
habit of singing in parts, and not, as most other 
nations do, in unison. 

However distasteful the aggression of the Roman 
Church may have been to the mass of the Welsh 

people in the twelfth century, this period 
Religious f 1 ...... , 

fervour in the brought a great revival 01 religious fervour, 

twelfth cent- gyg^ jf j|; came largely from alien sources. 

ury. ° ^ 

The rude churches of wood or wickerwork 
that five and six centuries before had marked the 
dawn, not of Christianity, but of organised Christian- 
ity, now gave place to solid and sometimes beautiful 
specimens of early English or Norman art. Many 
of them, not greatly altered by the restorer's touch, 
still stand amid the grandeur of majestic mountains 
or the loneliness of surf-beaten shores, and seem in 
consequence to speak more eloquently of these far- 
off, mysterious times than their more imposing 
contemporaries, which are set amid tame and com- 
monplace surroundings. In the twelfth and thir- 
teenth centuries, too, the great Welsh abbeys were 
in their prime. Valle Crucis, whose graceful ruins 

still defy the ages amid the matchless beau- 
Abbeys. . 

ties of the Vale of Llangollen, was the pride 

of Powys ; Ystradfiflur {Strata Floradd) in Cardigan 

shared with the Cistercian House of Aber Conway 

the honour of recording and safeguarding the 

chronicles of the Principality and of giving burial to 

her most illustrious dead. In a wild Radnor valley 



1400] Introductoi^y Sketch 53 

stood the great Franciscan abbey of Cwm Hir, 
while in the green meadows where the silver streams 
of the Mawddach and the Wnion meet in the shadow 
of Cader Idris, you may yet see the ivy clustering on 
the ruins of the once powerful foundation of St. 
lUtyd. Some centuries older than any of these, 
the most ancient of Welsh abbeys was still intact 
upon Ynys Enlli, the remote island of Bardsey, and 
served the churches that were so thickly sprinkled 
along the rugged coasts of Lleyn. It had been the 
" Rome of the Cymry." Thousands of pilgrims 
had annually turned thither their weary steps. It 
was accounted a good thing to go there, and still 
betterto die there; and though divided from the main- 
land by three miles of water, whose tides rage with 
notorious violence, the dust of " twenty thousand 
saints " lies, as all good Welshmen know, beneath the 
sod of this narrow and stormy isle. These are but a 
few haphazard examples of the centres of religion, 
which, amid the fierce passions of the Celt and the 
restless greed of the Norman, struck at least one 
peaceful note in nearly every Cambrian valley. 

We are now within less than a century of the fi- 
nal overthrow of Welsh independence. Enough has 
been said to show how gradually and with what hard 
fighting the disintegration of Wales was brought 
about, and still fiercer struggles were yet to come. 
The Princes of Powys, though liable to fitful attempts 
at independence, had now virtually sub- p^^ ^ ^^^ 
mitted to the English King, and even the English 
ranged themselves at times against their power, 

countrymen. North Wales was still intact, always 



54 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

excepting that debatable land between the Dee and 
Conway, the Perfeddwlad, which was lost and re- 
taken more times than it would be possible to take 
account of here. The great region of South Wales, 
however, from the edge of Hereford to Cardigan 
Bay, presented a rare confusion of authority. One 
scarcely ventures to touch the subject within such 
narrow limits as ours must needs be. Hardly as 
they were sometimes beset, even to the length of 
being driven from their lands and castles, the Nor- 
man adventurers steadily ate up bit by bit the old 
Kingdom of Deheubarth. Each man had just so 
Norman en- Hiuch territory as he could win by the 
croachments. sword, and, what was more important, 
only so much as he could keep by it. They all 
held their lands, whose limits were but vaguely de- 
fined by charter or title-deed, since they were un- 
definable, direct from the King of England, and 
had by virtue of their office the right to sit in Par- 
liament, and to support the royal canopy at corona- 
tions with silver spears. 

In their own domains they possessed absolute 
authority, so far as they could exercise it, even over 
the lives of their tenants. Small towns began to 
grow under the protection of their castle walls, and 
were occupied by their retainers. Courts were 
established in each lordship, and justice was adminis- 
tered to the Anglo-Norman minority after English 
custom and to the Welsh majority after the custom 
of old Welsh law, and in the native tongue. Let me 
repeat, I am but generalising. The condition of 
Wales at the opening of the thirteenth century was 



1400] Introductory Sketch 55 

far too complex to admit of analytical treatment 
within such a brief space as this. The exceptions to 
every rule were numerous. The King of waiesinthe 
England himself, for example, owned many thirteenth 
lordships and was represented in them by "^^^ ^^^' 
a Justiciar or Bailiff, and sometimes this function- 
ary was actually a Welshman. Here and there 
again a Welsh noble held property as a Norman 
Baron from the King while occasionally a Nor- 
man did allegiance for his barony to a Welsh 
Prince, and posed as a Welshman. 

The landed system of Wales in the Middle Ages 
is still more hopeless for purposes of brief descrip- 
tion. The indigenous tribal system, when land was 
held in families, or " gwelis," by the de- Landed 

scendants of a privileged though perhaps system. 
a large class, had been steadily undergoing modifi- 
cation since the later Saxon period,* and in all 
directions it was honeycombed not only by encroach- 
ing Normans, with their feudal and manorial land 
laws, and by the monastic houses, but long before 
the twelfth century many Welsh princes and chief- 
tains had felt the Saxon influence, and had drifted 
into the manorial system, so far at least as their own 
private possessions were concerned. 

With the close of the twelfth century the most 
illustrious of all Welsh Princes, the only possible 
rival of Glyndwr, Llewelyn ap lorwerth, Lieweiynthe 
comes upon the scene as a beardless Great, 1195. 
boy ; and in connection with this famous person it 
may fairly be said that though there was plenty of 

* See Seebohm's Tribal Wales, 



56 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

fight left in the still unconquered moiety of South 
Wales, and a little even in Powys, it is with Gwynedd 
that the interest of the last century of Welsh resist- 
ance mainly rests. Son of lorwerth the broken- 
nosed, who, though the rightful heir of Owen 
Gwynedd, was rejected on account of this disfigure- 
ment, Llewelyn the Great is supposed with good 
reason to have been born in the castle of Dolwyd- 
delan, whose ruinous walls, perched high upon the 
wild foot-hills of Moel Siabod, still look down 
upon the infant Llugwy as it urges its buoyant 
streams through one of the most beautiful of North 
Welsh valleys. 

Nurtured amid the clash of arms, the boy was only 
twelve years old when he asserted his right to the 
throne, and won it against his Norman-loving uncle, 
Dafydd, whom we left, it will be remembered, fight- 
ing in France. The young Prince, backed by a 
strong following in North Wales, and by the arms of 
Powys, deposed his uncle and commenced the long 
career which earned him that pre-eminent fame in 
warlike deeds which attaches to his name. By the 
time he was of age he was fully recognised as 
" Brenin holl Cymru," or Pendragon, by all that was 
left of Wales. John, who now occupied the English 
throne, so fully recognised the dawn of a 

Llewelyn ' \ ^ 

marries King new and formidable personal influence in 
John's daugh- jjjg tributary realm that he bestowed upon 
Llewelyn in marriage his illegitimate 
daughter Joan, together with a handsome dower. 

The first few years of the thirteenth century were 
fully occupied with ceaseless strife between the 



1400] Introdttctory Sketch 57 

Welsh Princes, their relatives, and the Norman no- 
bles settled in their midst. It will be sufficient to 
say that Llewelyn, high-handed and autocratic, lost 
nothing of his importance in such congenial work, 
and by 1209 had left his mark upon the English 
borders so rudely that King John and his vigorous 
son-in-law at length came to blows. The former, 
collecting a large army, penetrated to the Conway 
River, behind which, in the mountains of Snow- 
donia, Llewelyn with all his people and all his 
movables defied attack. 

John, with whom went many of the nobles of 
Powys, sat down at Deganwy Castle, one of the 
great strategic points of ancient Wales, john invades 
and one whose scanty ruins are familiar "vvaies, 1209. 
to visitors at Llandudno and Conway. But the 
Welsh slipped behind them and cut off their sup- 
plies. Nor could the King move forward, for 
across the river rose the grim masses of the Snow- 
don mountains. His people were reduced to eat- 
ing their horses, disease was ravaging their ranks, 
and there was nothing for it but to go back ; so 
John returned to England with rage at his heart. 
Nothing daunted he returned again to the attack, 
marching this time by way of Oswestry and Corwen. 
He was now both more daring and more fortunate, 
seeing that he succeeded in throwing a portion of 
his forces into Bangor. This checkmated Llewelyn, 
and he sent his wife to see what terms 
could be exacted from her father. His 
reply indicated that the cession of the unfortunate 
Perfeddwlad, and a fine of twenty thousand head of 



58 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

cattle was the least he could accept, and with these 
terms the Welsh Prince complied. The latter con- 
dition was probably inconvenient ; the former was 
merely a question of might for the time being. Any 
territorial arrangement with John was likely to be 
of only temporary consequence, for that undesirable 
King was perpetually under the ban of the Church, 
and had none too many friends. So in 12 12, when 
Pope Innocent absolved all John's feudatories from 
their allegiance, it furnished an admirable 
sides with excuse for Llewelyn to reoccupy the whole 
the barons ^f j^jg ancicnt dominion of Gwynedd, 

against John. ■' 

When, two years later, John's own barons 
rose against him, they formed an alliance with the 
powerful Prince of Gwynedd, who captured Shrews- 
bury, and thereby contributed no little to the press- 
ure which caused the signing of Magna Charta. 

Llewelyn subsequently swept through both Mid- 
and South Wales, sacking and gutting many of the 
hated Norman castles, till he came to be regarded in 
the South with as much devotion as in his own 
province. Every dispute concerning territory or 
boundaries was submitted ^to his judgment. Even 
the Flemings of Pembroke for the first time since 
their occupation tendered their homage to a Welsh 
Prince. 

But between the death of John and the accession 
of Henry IIL, the nobles of England forgot their 
obligations to Llewelyn, while the Marcher barons 
whose castles he had sacked were eager enough to 
turn this indifference into hostility. The I'esult of 
all this was that Llewelyn found himself threatened 



1400] introductory Sketch 59 

by the whole power of England and of Anglo-Nor- 
man Wales in the event of his refusal to 

Lle\velyn 

abandon his recent conquests. Llewelyn recognised by 
ap lorwerth, wise in his generation, sought Johnasruier 

^ / ^ , => . of W^ales. 

a personal interview with the young King, 
his brother-in-law, at which he undertook to do him 
homage ; a formality which, I have more than once 
observed, Welsh Princes had no reluctance upon 
principle in conceding. On this occasion, moreover, 
Llewelyn's pride was fully gratified. He was ofific- 
ially recognised as Prince of all Gwynedd, with the 
second title of Lord of Snowdon, and his suzerainty 
over the other divisions of Wales was formally ac- 
knowledged. We find him emphasising this diplo- 
matic triumph by granting that bone of contention, 
the Perfeddwlad, to his son Griffith, and the latter 
with the fatuity so common to his race returning 
this piece of parental affection by laying violent 
hands on Merioneth, another district within his 
father's Principality. This was a wholly outrageous 
proceeding and Llewelyn, finding remonstrance un- 
availing, hastened eastward with a strong force to 
chastise his incorrigible offspring. The , , , , 

o i- o Llewelyn s 

latter was quite prepared to fight, and we son rebels 
have the edifying picture of father and ^e^'"^* J^^'"- 
son facing each other in arms in a cause wholly 
wanton, and as if there were no such thing as Nor- 
mans and Saxons, to say nothing of South Welsh- 
men, ever and always threatening their existence. 
A reconciliation was happily effected, but when 
Llewelyn found himself with most of the soldiery 
of his province around him in arms, the temptation 



6o Owen Gly7idwr [4oo- 

was too great, and throwing treaties to the winds, 
he fell upon the English border and harried it from 
Chester to Hereford. Drawn thence south-west- 
wards by signs of restlessness on the part of that 
ever-rankling sore, the Anglo-Flemish colony of 
Pembroke, he swept through South Wales and 
fought a great battle on the confines of their terri- 
tory, which the fall of night found still undecided. 

From now onwards till 1234 there was little peace 
in Wales, and above the ceaseless din of arms the 
Continuous Star of Llcwclyu ap lorwerth shone with 
war, 1234. p^gj. increasing glory. Then came a con- 
federation of Norman barons against King Henry, 
who, turning for support to Llewelyn, entered into a 
solemn league and covenant both with him and 
with his tributary princes. It was so strong a com- 
bination that Henry shrank from coping with it. It 
was the first occasion on which Anglo-Norman 
Barons and Welsh Princes on an important scale had 
formed a treaty of alliance with each other and, still 
more, had honourably observed it. Even more sin- 
gular perhaps was the outcome, when, Henry being 
forced to a compromise, a Welsh Prince found him- 
self in the unprecedented position of being able to 
exact conditions for the great Norman feudatories of 
Wales from a Norman King. 

Llewelyn, having buried his wife Joan in the abbey 
of Llanfaes near Beaumaris, himself died at Aber in 
Death of ^^^ year 1240, after a stormy but, judged 
Llewelyn II., by the cthics of the time, a brilliant reign 
"''°' of over half a century. His triumphs were 

of course for the most part military ones. But no 



1400] Introductory Sketch 6i 

Welsh Princes having regard to the dedine of Cymric 
power had ever accomplished quite so much. He 
had forced his authority upon all Wales except the 
lordship Marches, but he had also been a sleepless 
patriot, driving the English arms back and greatly 
weakening the English influence throughout the 
whole Principality. With this scant notice of a long 
and eventful reign we must take leave of the war- 
like son of lorwerth. He was buried at Aber Con- 
way in the abbey he had founded ; but his stone 
coffin was removed in later days to the beautiful 
church at Llanrwst, where amid the historic treas- 
ures of the Gwydir Chapel it still recalls to the 
memory of innumerable pilgrims " the eagle of men, 
who loved not to lie nor sleep, who towered above 
the rest of men with his long red lance and his red 
helmet of battle crested with a savage wolf, Llewelyn 
the Great." 

Wales, though rapidly approaching the era of her 
political extinction, was now so unusually strong and 
even aggressive that the English King was com- 
pelled to watch the course of events there with a 
vigilant eye. From the Welsh point of view it was 
of vital importance that Llewelyn's successor in 
Gwynedd should be both acceptable to his people 
and strong in himself. Unhappily he was neither, 
unless indeed obstinacy may count for strength. Of 
Llewelyn's family two sons alone concern us here. 
Griffith, the elder of these by a Welsh mother, has 
been already alluded to as going to war in such wild 
fashion with his father. Rightly or wrongly he was 
regarded as illegitimate, though that circumstance, it 



62 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

may be remarked parenthetically, was not such a 
vital matter in Old Wales. But his father's marriage 
with an English King's daughter suggests the possi- 
bility of making too light of a former and less dis- 
tinguished alliance. Be that as it may, the younger 
of the two, the son of the Princess Joan and nephew 
of Henry III., succeeded in seating himself on his 
father's throne, though not without protest from the 
Welsh nobility who did not by any means relish his 
EngHsh blood. Dafydd had all the English influ- 
ence behind him, while his close connection with the 
King seemed to make for peace. But Grififith, the 
elder, in spite of his presumed illegitimacy, was the 
popular candidate, and Dafydd did not improve 
his own position by proceeding to strip his half- 
brother of his private property, and immuring his 
person in Criccieth Castle. All Wales protested. 
The Bishop of Bangor went so far as to excommuni- 
cate his temporal ruler, and King Henry himself on 
his distant throne expressed unmistakable disap- 
proval of the whole business. But Dafydd cared 
neither for King nor Bishop. To the former he re- 
plied that if Grififith were at liberty there would be 
no peace in Wales, a possibility that seems by no 
means remote when one considers the performances 
of this young man in his father's lifetime. Henry was 
not to be thus put off, and approached the Marches 
with a strong army. This unmistakable procedure 
Griffith sent ^^^^ ^^^ almost unanimous support it met 
to the Tower with from the Welsh nobility frightened 
' Dafydd into a promise of submission. But 
the upshot of all this was not precisely what Griffith's 



1400] Introductory Sketch 63 

Welsh friends had expected. He was released 
from Criccieth, it is true, but only to be transferred 
to the Tower of London pending Henry's decision 
as to his ultimate fate. 

Much more important than this disposal of Grif. 
fith's person was the extraction from Dafydd by his 
uncle of one of the most humiliating treaties ever 
wrung from a Welsh Prince, a treaty which might 
well cause his father, the great Llewelyn, to turn in 
his grave beside the Conway. Every advantage that 
Llewelyn's strong arm had gained was tamely aband- 
oned by his unworthy son. The Princes of Powys 
and South Wales were absolved from their oath of 
homage to the ruler of Gwynedd, which Principality 
shrank once more to the banks of the Conway. In 
the meantime Griffith with his young son Owen was 
left by Henry to languish in the Tower, till, filled with 
despair, he made a bold bid for freedom. Weaving 
ropes out of his bed-clothing he let himself Death of 
down by night from his prison window; Griffith. 
but, being a corpulent man, his weight was too much 
for such slender supports, and he fell from a great 
height to the ground, breaking his neck upon the 
spot. 

The Welsh were greatly exasperated at the news, 
laying the death of their favourite most naturally at 
Henry's door, and as the Marcher barons had been 
encouraged of late in their aggressions and tyrannies 
by the decline of Welsh strength, the time seemed 
ripe for another general rising. Dafydd now came 
out as a warrior and a patriot leader, and Wales ral- 
lied to his standard. He was, however, so appalled 



64 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

by the memory of the awful oaths of allegiance he 
had sworn to his royal uncle and the vengeance of 
Heaven he had invited in case of their non-observ- 
ance, that he sent secretly a sum of money 
makls war ^^ ^he Popc, — all in fact he could scrape 
on the together, — begging for absolution. His 

Holiness granted this readily enough and 
professed to recognise his right to independence. 
But Henry, hearing of it, and disturbed by these 
manoeuvres of the Vicar of God, secretly forwarded 
twice the amount of money sent by Dafydd to the 
Pope, who thereupon reversed all his previous de- 
cisions. We do not hear whether the Welsh Prince 
got his money back. He certainly got no value for 
it. So now in these years of 1244-45 war 
raged once more throughout Wales and 
the Marches, and Dafydd, though unendowed with 
his father's warlike talents, nevertheless by his pa- 
triotic action regained the affection of his people. 
Henry was busy in Scotland and it was nearly a year 
before he could get to Wales in person ; when he did, 
he pushed his way, with only one brisk fight, to that 
time-honoured barrier, the Conway estuary, and sat 
down with a large army of English and Gascons on 
the green pastures around Deganwy Castle, where he 
gazed with inevitable helplessness at the Welsh 
forces crowding on the marsh across the river, 
or lining the outer ramparts of Snowdonia that 
Henry III. frown behind it. The troubles of King 
in Wales. John, and even worse, befell his son. 
Matthew of Paris has preserved for us a " letter from 
the front " written by a knight, who gives a graphic 



1400] Introductory Sketch 65 

description of the sufferings of the army, not for- 
getting himself in the narration of them. Cold, 
sickness, and hunger were their lot, varied by fierce 
skirmishes with the Welsh and desperate fights over 
the English provision boats, which made their way 
from Chester round the Orme's Head into the Con- 
way. Aber Conway Abbey was ruthlessly sacked 
by the English soldiery, much to the regret, it should 
be said, of our " special correspondent " and greatly 
to the rage of the Welsh, who in revenge slaughtered 
every wounded Englishman they could lay hands on. 

No definite result accrued from this war. Dafydd 
died a few months after this amid the regrets of his 
people, whose affection had been secured by his later 
deeds. He had atoned for his former pusillanimity 
by the stubborn resistance which marked the close of 
his life. His death made way for the last and, to 
Englishmen, the most illustrious of all the long line 
of Welsh Princes. 

Dafydd left no heir. Strictly speaking, his legal 
successor was a Norman, Sir Ralph Mortimer, who 
had married Gwladys, a legitimate daughter of 
Llewelyn. Such a successor was of course out of the 
question, and, as Henry abstained from all interfer- 
ence, the nobles of North Wales naturally fell back 
on the illegitimate branch, that of Grififith, who 
perished in the moat of the Tower of London. This 
unfortunate Prince, whose body was about this time 
removed to Conway and buried with great pomp, 
had three sons, Llewelyn, Owen, and Dafydd. It 
would seem as if all past experiences were lost upon 
the nobles of Gwynedd, since they were fatuous 



66 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

enough to appoint the two elder of these Princes to 

the joint rulership of their province. The partnership 

survived an English invasion which Henry 
Sons of ° . f . 

Griffith made on hearing that the chieftains of 

appointed to 50^^^ Walcs Were calling on the new 

joint ruler- ° 

ship of Princes of Gwynedd to aid them, in the be- 

N. Wales. jj^^ \}i\2X a diversion would be opportune. 
Once more the English appeared on the Conway. 
As usual, the Welsh with their stock and movables 
had slipped over the river into the impregnable 
wilds of Snowdonia, and the King returned as 
Henry III ^^ Went, burning St. Asaph's Cathedral 
again in on his march. There was now peace in 

Wales for some years ; a lull, as it were, be- 
fore the great conflict that was to be the end of all 
things. But peace and plenty, in the words of the 
chronicler, " begat war." For want of enemies the 
two brothers turned their arms against each other. 
Owen, the younger, was the aggressor in this instance, 
and he justly suffered for it, being overcome by 
Llewelyn and immured for the rest of his life in the 
lonely castle of Dolbadarn, whose ivy-mantled shell 
still stands by the Llanberis lakes. 

Dafydd, the third brother, had supported Owen, 
and he, too, was seized and securely confined. Llew- 
Lieweiyn III. ^^y"' "^^ Supreme in North Wales, be- 
(orap comes the outstanding figure around 

which the closing scene of the long and 
heroic resistance of the Welsh henceforth gathers. 
South Wales was in a distracted state. The Lord 
Marchers and the King's BaiHffs, backed by English 
support, had taken fresh heart from Welsh dissensions 



1400] Introductory Sketch 67 

and were pressing hardly on those native chieftains 
who did not side with them. Every chieftain and 
noble in Wales whose patriotism had not been tamp- 
ered with now took up arms. Llewelyn was uni- 
versally recognised as the national leader, and the 
years 1257-58 were one long turmoil of 
war and battle in every part of Wales. 
Llewelyn had cleared off all recent aggression, fallen 
with heavy hand on the old settled barons, and smit- 
ten the traitors among his fellow-countrymen hip 
and thigh. A battle was fought on the Towy, which 
some chroniclers say was the bloodiest ever engaged 
in between Welsh and English, to the worsting of 
the latter and the loss of two thousand men. 

The Perfeddwlad had been granted to Prince Ed- 
ward, then Earl of Chester. His agents there had 
distinguished themselves, even in those y^ Henry 
cruel times, for intolerable oppression. attacks 
Llewelyn in his vengeance swept Ed- ^^^ ^"' 
ward's new property bare from the Conway to the 
Dee. The future conqueror and organiser of Wales 
was at this moment hardly pressed. His Welsh 
friends, like the then Prince of Powys, were heavily 
punished by Llewelyn and their lands laid waste. 
Edward sent to Ireland for succour, but the Irish 
ships were met at sea by those of Llewelyn and 
driven back. Henry now returned to his son's 
assistance, and, drawing together " the whole strength 
of England from St. Michael's Mount to the river 
Tweed," executed the familiar promenade across the 
wasted Perfeddwlad, and experienced the familiar 
sense of impotence upon the Conway with its well 



68 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

defended forts and frowning mountains alive with 
agile spearmen. 

Once again the tide of battle rolled back to the 
English border, and the first serious punishment we 
hear of the Welsh receiving curiously enough was at 
the hands of some German cavalry imported and led 
by Lord Audley, whose large horses seem to have 
struck some terror into the mountaineers. But this 
is a detail. Llewelyn may almost be said to have re- 
peated the exploits of his grandfather and recon- 
quered Wales. Even Flemish Pembroke had been 
forced to its knees. His followers to the number of 
ten thousand had bound themselves by oath to die 
rather than submit, and these, being picked men and 
inured to war, were a formidable nucleus for the 
fighting strength of Wales to rally round. The re- 
volt, too, of Simon de Montfort against Henry was all 
in favour of Llewelyn, who took the former's part 
and was able to render him considerable personal 
service in the decline of his success. 

Through many years of intermittent strife and 

varying fortunes the balance of power remained with 

Llewelyn, till in 1267 a peace was made 

eiynmaker' ^^ Shrewsbury very greatly in his favour. 

peace and is By this agreement Henry in consideration 

recognised by , - , , 

Henry as o^ ^ sum of money undertook to recog- 
Princeofaii nise Llewelyu as Prince of all Wales and 

Wales 

entitled to receive homage and fealty 
from every prince and noble in the country save the 
sadly shorn representatives of the old line of Deheu- 
barth. But after two years* enjoyment of this con- 
tract the King's death and the succession of the 



1400] Introductory Sketch 69 

strenuous Prince Edward threw everything once 
more into confusion. 

It is true that Edward, who was in the Holy Land 
fighting Turks, took two years in finding his way 
home. But when he did so, in 1274, and Liewei 
was crowned King he threw his father's and Edward 
treaty with Llewelyn to the winds ; an ' "'^' 

action for which, it is true, the latter gave him some 
excuse by refusing to attend at his coronation, not 
from recusancy, but from a well-grounded fear that 
his life would not be safe from certain Anglo-Norman 
nobles whose territory he would have to pass through. 

Now comes a passage in Llewelyn's stormy life 
that his admirers would fain forget, since it records 
how for love of a woman he reversed the indomit- 
able front he had hitherto shown to the invading 
English, and submitted almost without a blow to 
the dictation of the returned Crusader, whom he had 
so often beaten of old in the Welsh Marches. It 
was perhaps the memory of these former rebuffs that 
made the proud and warlike Edward so vindictive 
towards Llewelyn. A weapon, too, was at this mo- 
ment placed in his hands which was to assist him 
in a manner he had not dreamed of. The young 
daughter of the late Simon de Montfort, to whom 
the Welsh Prince was betrothed and whom Lieweiyn-s 
he is said to have deeply loved, was sail- betrothed 

wife seized 

ing from France to become his bride. In by the 

anxiety to escape the English, the ship Enghsh. 
that bore her unluckily ran among some Bristol ves- 
sels off the Scilly Islands. The captains seized 



70 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

the prospective bride and carried her at once to 
Edward, who was on the point of invading Wales 
with two armies. Four years of peace had doubt- 
less weakened the strong Welsh league that had 
worked such wonders against Henry III. Numbers 
of his old friends at any rate failed to respond to 
Llewelyn's call. The Prince had now before him 
the alternatives of immediate union with his be- 
trothed, or of war and chaos with a lukewarm or 
hostile South Wales and certainly a hostile Powys 
added to the power of England, 

After being cooped up for some weeks in the 
Snowdon mountains by the royal army, Llewelyn 
signed at length a treaty with Edward, the con- 
ditions of which were as humiliating as if he had 
been crushed to the earth by a series of disastrous 
battles, whereas he was in truth the still recognised 
suzerain of all Wales. To put the case, or the gist of 
it, briefly : all Wales except the Snowdon lordships 
(the present Carnarvonshire) was to revert absolutely 
to the King of England, Welsh and alien lords ahke 
becoming his tenants. Even Anglesey was to revert 
to the Crown in the event of Llewelyn's dying with- 
out issue. Nothing was to be left of Welsh inde- 
pendence but the " cantrefs," or lordships, 
makis peace Constituting Snowdonia ; and over this 
with Ed- remnant Llewelyn's heirs were to be 

ward I. . . . . 

graciously permitted to reign in peace. 
The Prince's passion had proved greater than his 
patriotism ; the treaty was signed at Conway, and 
King Edward, who had advanced unopposed to 
Cardiganshire, withdrew his troops. 



1400] Introductory Sketch 71 

" The force of love," says the chronicler, groaning 
over this depressing episode, " does indeed work 
wonders." Llewelyn, not long afterwards, Lieweiyn's 
was married in great pomp at Worcester marriage, 
in presence of the whole Court of England, the 
King himself giving the bride away, and the late 
ruler of all Wales and now lord merely of Snow- 
donia, with a life interest in Anglesey, retired to the 
obscurity of his contracted honours. Here, amid 
the Carnarvon mountains, he began ere long to feel 
the prickings of conscience, and remorse for the 
weak part he had played. 

Edward, too, kept open the wound by frequently 
summoning him to this place or that on various 
pleas, and the Welsh Prince, dreading treachery and 
remembering his father, Griffith's, fate, as constantly 
refused to go without a guaranty of safety. The 
greater part of the present counties of Carmarthen 
and Cardigan were already King's ground. As 
forming part of the old Principality of South Wales, 
and therefore not Marcher property, they had come 
to Edward. A county court had before this been 
established at Carmarthen, and efforts to make 
this territory shire ground had been feebly made, but 
they were now vigorously renewed, and the Perfedd- 
wlad was treated in savage fashion. Ferocity was the 
distinguishing mark of all the servants of Edward I. 

From every part of Wales came the cry of despair- 
ing Welshmen ground to powder by the cruelty of Ed- 
insensate tyrannies of the King's Bailiffs ward's govem- 
and the Lord Marchers, now left entirely '"^^ ' " '" 
to their own wild wills. Llewelyn's third brother, 



72 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

Dafydd, who had played the part of King's friend 
and traitor to his own people for most of his 
life, was rewarded by the Barony of Denbigh. It 
was the year 1281 and the time was now ripe for the 
last scene of the last act in this long, sanguinary 
struggle. Many of the chieftains of Wales, thinking, 
as they had often thought before, that death was 
preferable to the intolerable oppression from which 
the country now suffered, approached Dafydd at 
"^ Denbigh and assured him that if he would even thus 
tardily be reconciled to his brother Llewelyn and 
lead them, they would strike yet one more blow for 
Dafydd turns freedom. Dafydd, probably with their 
patriot. knowledge, was smarting under some 

real or fancied slight from his patron. King Ed- 
ward, though maybe his heart was really touched 
at the extreme suiTerings of his countrymen. At 
any rate he played the man to an extent that more 
than atoned for his unworthy past. Dafydd and his 
brother Llewelyn now met at the former's castle 
upon the high rock of Denbigh, and there the Welsh 
chieftains who had declared for death or freedom 
rallied to the standard raised by the grandsons of 
Llewelyn and Llewelyn the Great, and held upon "the 
Dafydd unite craggy hill in Rhos" the last formal coun- 

for rcsisticincc o^^ 

cil of either peace or war that was to be 
recorded in the pages of Welsh history. The news 
of the proposed rising had reached England before 
Llewelyn had left his palace at Aber, and had caused 
some consternation. Edward and his barons had re- 
garded the Welsh question as settled, and thought 
that on the death of the now pacified and uxorious 



1400] Introductory Sketch 73 

Llewelyn the last vestige of independence would 
quietly lapse. The Archbishop of Canterbury was 
greatly distressed. He sent word to Llewelyn that he 
was coming to see him for the love he bore to Wales, 
and without the King's knowledge ; and he then, in 
actual fact, travelled all the way to Aber and used 
every argument, persuasive and coercive, he could 
think of to turn the Welsh Prince from what seemed 
a mad and hopeless enterprise. He threatened him 
with the whole physical power of England, the whole 
spiritual power of Rome. Never did the last Llew- 
elyn, or indeed any Llewelyn, show a nobler front 
than on this occasion. For himself, he was materi- 
ally well provided for and beyond the reach of the 
persecution that pressed upon most of his fellow- 
countrymen. But they had called to him in their 
despair, and desperate as the risk might be he had 
resolved to stand or fall with them. A schedule of 
conditions was sent him from the English King and 
his council, under which everything was to be over- 
looked, if only he and his people would return to 
their allegiance. Among other things an English 
county, with a pension of ;^iooo a year, Lieweiyn re- 
was offered him in lieu of Snowdon.J^'^*^^"*^*'™^- 
Llewelyn replied with scorn that he wanted no 
English county, that his patrimony was lawfully his 
own by virtue of a long line of ancestors ; that even 
if he himself were base enough to yield up the Snow- 
don lordships, his subjects there would never submit 
to a rule that was hateful to them and had brought 
such misery on their neighbours of the Perfeddwlad. 
It was better, he declared, to die with honour than to 



74 Owen Glyndwr 



[400- 



live in slavery ; and it may perhaps be repeated to 
his advantage that Llewelyn himself was only a suf- 
ferer so far as his proper pride was concerned, though 
it is possible he felt some pricks of conscience about 
the concessions made two years previously. At 
any rate he nobly atoned for them. There is evi- 
outsidesym- dcnce that admiration for the gallant 
pathyfor stand made by this remnant of the Welsh 

Wales. 

was being kindled not only across the seas 
but even among Englishmen themselves. " Even 
Englishmen and foreigners," says Matthew of Paris, 
who was assuredly no Welshman, " were touched 
with pity and admiration." 

Prince Dafydd, who was offered his pardon on con- 
dition of immediately repairing to the Holy Land, 
Dafydd rejects'^^^ equally stubbom, though perhaps the 
Edward's temptation to be otherwise was not so 
erms. great. He replied to the effect that he 

had no intention of undertaking a Crusade at the 
dictates of others. However admirable was this tardy 
patriotism, his past record from that point of view 
was wholly dishonourable, for he had been consist- 
ently a King's man. On the other hand, if, as was 
possibly the case with many Welsh nobles, he had 
sincerely believed that submission to English rule 
was the wisest thing for Welshmen, his abrupt re- 
pudiation of the man whose favours he had sought 
and received is not readily excusable. In this direc- 
tion it is urged that the Anglo-Norman garrisons in 
these first years of Edward's reign had made life so 
intolerable that Dafydd was sufficiently touched by 
his countrymen's sufferings to risk everything and 



1400] Introductory Sketch 75 

join his gallant brother in so forlorn a hope. " It 
was better for the kingdom at large that Wales 
should be governed," wrote the brothers to Edward, 
"by her own Princes, paying that homage to the 
King of England which they had never refused, 
than by greedy strangers whose only thought was 
to oppress her people, despoil her churches, and 
advance their own private interests." 

The fall of the curtain upon this remnant of 
Welsh independence was now but a matter of a few 
months. Edward's answer to the Princes was the 
despatch of a fleet to Anglesey, and of an army 
along the north coast route, containing large num- 
bers of Gascons, and even some Spaniards. Edward 
himself went as far as Conway, meeting on the way 
with a heavy repulse and considerable loss in what 
was soon to be Flintshire. Dafydd, who was com- 
manding in the north, was pushed into Snowdonia. 
The English army in Anglesey bridged the Menai 
with boats, and a strong detachment, crossing before 
the connection was complete, encount- „. . ^. 

^ ' Fighting on 

ered the Welsh near Bangor. The invad- the Menai 
ers, however, were all cut off and slain in straits, 

a fierce battle fought upon the shore, among them 
being many barons, knights, and squires. 

These successes could only delay the end and ex- 
asperate the inevitable conquerors. Llewelyn, not 
wishing to be starved into surrender among the 
Snowdon mountains, had gone south to rouse the 
new shire land of Cardigan and Carmarthen, and 
the warlike Radnor tenants of the Mortimers. The 
Earl of Gloucester with another English army had 



76 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

meanwhile penetrated into South Wales and de- 
feated a large force of Welsh patriots at Llandilo in 
the valley of the Towy. 

Llewelyn came up, fighting his way through Car- 
diganshire, and had reached Builth on the Wye, 
^ .^ , when, on December nth, he met his fate. 

Death of ' ' 

the last The story of his death is too much con- 

Lieweiyn. fugej, and there is no space here for re- 
peating the slightly varying versions of the tragedy, 
but it seems quite clear that he was tempted away 
from the main body of his army by treachery, and 
slain when he was without arms in his hands. His 
head was struck off and despatched at once to King 
Edward at Conway, who, receiving it with great joy, 
sent it immediately by sea to his army in Anglesey. 
Thence the gruesome trophy was forwarded to Lon- 
don, where crowds of people met it outside the city 
and placed upon the gory brows a wreath of ivy in 
mockery of the old Welsh prophecy that a Prince of 
Llewelyn's Welsh blood should once more be crowned 
head carried jj^ Londou. It was then fixcd upon the 

through . '■ 

London in point of a lance and carried in triumph 
triumph. through the streets to the pillory, and 
from the pillory to its final resting-place above the 
gate of the Tower. 

Thus perished the last representative of the long 
line of Welsh Princes that may be said to have had 
its rise with the sons of Cunedda eight centuries be- 
fore. The last dim spark of Welsh independence 
flickered feebly for a few weeks, till the very recesses 
of Snowdonia, for almost the first time in history, 
gave back their echoes to the blast of English bugles, 



1400] Introductory Sketch jj 

and the wild passes of Nant Francon and Llanberis 
felt the tramp of alien feet. Dafydd found himself 
alone, a hunted outlaw in the forests of the Vale of 
Clwyd. He was soon captured and taken capture and 
to Shrewsbury, where a Parliament was execution 
then sitting. Llewelyn's remains had ° ^ ^ * 
been treated with doubtful logic and poor chivalry 
as a traitor. What treatment he would have met 
with at Edward's hands as a prisoner we cannot 
know. But Dafydd could expect nothing but the 
worst and he received it. He was tried as an Eng- 
lish baron at Shrewsbury and sentenced to be quart- 
ered, disembowelled, and beheaded. His quarters 
were distributed among four English cities, Winches- 
ter and York, it is said, quarrelling for the honour of 
his right shoulder, while his head was sent to moulder 
by his brother's over the gateway of the Tower of 
London. A story runs that while his entrails were 
being burned his heart leaped from the flames and 
struck the executioner who was feeding them. 

All resistance worthy of mention was now over in 
Wales. The six centuries or thereabouts of its his- 
tory as a separate nation in whole or in 
part had closed. A new epoch was to Edward 
open, and Edward was the man to mark jetties the 

^ ' new govern- 

the division between the past and the mentof 

future in emphatic fashion. Hitherto, 
though statesmanlike in his views, he had been in 
actual deed both cruel and unjust to Wales, and 
allowed his agents to be still more so ; but now 
that resistance was crushed he dropped the war- 
rior and tyrant and showed himself the statesman 



78 Owen Glyndwr [400- 

that he was. Most of the Welshmen that had re- 
mained in arms received their pardons, though a 
few took service abroad. The King exacted no san- 
guinary vengeance, but followed, rather, the more 
merciful and practical course of providing against 
the chance of his Welsh subjects requiring it in 
future. He went to Wales with his Court and re- 
mained there for nearly three years. He made 
Rhuddlan his principal headquarters, rebuilding its 
ancient castle ; and at Conway, Harlech, and Car- 
narvon, besides some less formidable fortresses, he 
left those masterpieces of defensive construction 
that have been the admiration of all subsequent 
ages. From Rhuddlan in due course he issued 
The statutes the famous statutes called by its name, 
of Rhuddlan. virhich proclaimed at once the death-knell 
of Old Wales and the fact of its territorial fusion 
with the realm of England. The details of the set- 
tlement were laborious, and the spectacle of an Eng- 
lish Court spending in all nearly three busy years in 
Wales is evidence of the thoroughness with which 
Edward did his work. 

It is enough here to say that with the exception 
of modern Denbighshire, which was left in lordships, 
Edward carved North Wales into the present count- 
ies of Flint, Anglesey, Carnarvon, and Merioneth. 
Powys and South Wales being honeycombed with 
Anglo-Norman lordships and reconciled Welsh chief- 
tains, he shrank probably from disentangling a con- 
fusion that brought no particular danger to himself, 
and from a course that would have embroiled him 
with the whole feudal interest of the Marches. 




si^^m . 












1400] Introductory Sketch 79 

The still mainly Welsh districts, however, of Car- 
digan and Carmarthen, he had already, as we have 
seen, formed into counties. They were now, like 
those of the North, to be governed by lieuten- 
ants, sheriffs, and justices, and in all things to re- 
semble English counties, except in the privilege of 
sending representatives to Parliament. Wales was 
kept separate from England, however, in so far as 
its immediate feudal lord was not the King of Eng- 
land, but the King's eldest son ; and the Principality 
of Wales at this time, it must be remembered, meant 
only the royal counties. 

Edward's laws for the conquered country were 
just and his intention not ungenerous. He reduced 
the rentals hitherto due to the Welsh Edward's in- 
Princes and listened patiently to the griev- *^"*»o"s ■•"st- 
ances of the people. He enacted that both in count- 
ies and lordships the old Welsh laws should be those 
of the Welsh so far as possible, and that justice 
should be administered in both languages, and he 
sent the Archbishop of Canterbury on a long visit- 
ation to take note of the destruction to churches 
perpetrated during the recent wars, and to arrange 
for their repair. 

He was severe on the bards, it is true, but he did 
not slaughter them, as an old fiction asserts. Their 
wandering avocations v/ere sternly repressed, and 
with the business that he had in hand it is not easy 
to see what other course he could have taken with 
men whose trade then chiefly consisted in recall- 
ing the wrongs of Wales and urging revenge. The 
whole business was concluded by a great tournament 



8o Owen Glyndwr t4oo- 

at Nevin, on the Carnarvon coast, which was attended 

by the flower of Welsh, English, and Gascon chivalry. 

When the King returned to London after his long 

absence, he went with splendid ceremonial and a 

The King's ^^^^ prOCCSslon tO the Tower and to West- 
return to minster Abbey, causing the regalia of the 
°" ""■ exterminated Welsh Princes and the skull 
of St. David to be borne before him. Nor must one 
omit mention of the immortal but grim joke which 
tradition says that he played upon the Welsh nobil- 
ity before leaving the country. For does not every 
schoolboy know how, having promised them a Prince 
who was born in Wales and could speak no English, 
he sent Queen Eleanor to Carnarvon for the birth 
of Edward the Second ? 

A good deal can be said of the century that 
was to elapse before our story opens, but not much 

that is of vital import. In 1295, thirteen 

years after the conquest, Madoc ap Mere- 
dith, a connection of Llewelyn's, made a last at- 
tempt to rouse the Welsh. It proved abortive, but 
was serious enough to stop Edward from going to 
France, and to take him down to Conway, where it 
is said that on a certain occasion a high tide cut 
him ofT from his men, and nearly delivered him into 
the hands of the insurgents. 

It would be too much to say that the next hund- 

red years in Wales were those of peace and 
through the prosperity. But by comparison with the 
centu?"*'' P^^^ ^^^y might not untruly be called so. 

No serious friction occurred between the 
two races ; while the long wars with France and 



1400] Introductory Sketch 8i 

constant broils with Scotland engrossed the at- 
tention of the Welsh aristocracy, both Norman and 
native. Nor, again, was it only the nobles and gen- 
try that found respite from their domestic quarrels 
in a combined activity upon the unfortunate soil of 
France. Welsh soldiers as well as Welsh gentlemen 
served by thousands in the armies of England, and 
few people remember that about a third of the vic- 
torious army at Cressy were Welshmen. This long 
companionship in arms and partnership in almost 
unparallelled glories must have done something to 
lessen the instinctive antipathy with which the two 
peoples had from time immemorial regarded each 
other. Yet how much of the ancient enmity sur- 
vived, only requiring some spark to kindle it, will be 
evident enough as I proceed to the main part of 
my story, and the doings of the indomitable Welsh- 
man who is its hero. 

6 




CHAPTER II 

BIRTH AND EARLY LIFE 

1 359-1 399 

" At my birth 

The front of heaven was full of fiery shapes ; 
The goats ran from the mountains, and the herds 
Were strangely clamorous to the frighted fields. 
These signs have marked me extraordinary, 
And all the courses of my life do show, 
I am not in the roll of common men." 

IN these famous lines the Glyndwr of Shakespeare, 
though not, perhaps, a very faithful portrait of 
the true Glyndwr, tells us of those dread portents 
which heralded his birth. Thus far, however, tradi- 
tion rings true enough in the lines of the great poet, 
and is even shorn of some of the most fearsome de- 
tails it has sent down to us through various channels. 
Shakespeare's Glyndwr might, for instance, have told 
us, what all Welshmen of his day were well assured 
of, that on that memorable night the horses of 
Griffith Vychan, his father, were found standing in 
their stables up to their fetlocks in blood ; and how 
he himself, while still an infant in his nurse's arms, 
was accustomed to greet with demonstrations of de- 
light the sight of a sword or spear and allow those 

82 



1359-1399] Birth and Early Life 83 

around him no peace till the deadly weapon was 
placed in his baby hand. 

There is great uncertainty as to the day, and some 
disagreement as to the exact year, wherein old earth 
thus shook in labour with so heroic a soul. This 
divergency of opinion extends over the period of ten 
years, from 1349 to 1359. The evidence that seems 
to give the latter date unquestionable preference will 
be alluded to shortly. In any case the point to be 
noted is that the hero of this story, judged by the 
standard of his time, was quite advanced in life when 
he began the long and arduous undertaking that has 
made his name immortal, and cherished by his 
countrymen as the most famous of all names in their 
history. For there is no shadow of a doubt that if 
the Welsh people were polled upon the subject, 
Owen Glyndwr would stand, by an overwhelming 
majority, at the head of the list of national heroes. 
Whether rightly or wrongly he holds the first place 
among Welsh warrior patriots in the affections of 
his countrymen. 

It was the fortune, as I have endeavoured to make 
plain in the introductory chapter, of a long succes- 
sion of Welsh chieftains, to find themselves at the 
head of a people struggling desperately against con- 
quest and absorption. It is no wonder that with such 
opportunities ever present, century after century, 
the list of those who seized them and won distinction 
and some measure of success, and thereby preserved 
their names to posterity, is no short one. It is not 
to the point that the field of their exploits was a 
small one, and the people who cherish their memory 



84 Owen Glyndwr 1359- 

a small people, — so much more, rather, the honour, 
seeing the odds against which they contended with 
such rare tenacity ; nor, again, is it to their discredit 
that English historians have done as a rule scant 
justice to the vigour of the old Welsh warriors. 
"Good wine needs no bush." The surface and the 
tongue of Wales to-day are sufficient evidence to the 
vitality of its people and their martial prowess in 
the days of old. Their heroes have happily too long 
been dust to suffer in reputation at the hands of the 
modern destroyer of historic ideals. But above them 
all, this last and most recent of patriots, Owen ap 
Grififith Vychan of Glyndyfrdwy, distinctly towers. 
Precisely why this should be is not readily explicable, 
and to very many educated Welshmen the fact is 
not acceptable. But it is unnecessary to advance 
here any reasons or theories for the particular prefer- 
ence accorded to Glyndwr. Whether worthy or not, 
the fame is his, and though, curiously enough, un- 
commemorated in marble, stone, or brass, and re- 
corded by the poet and historian in a fragmentary 
and disconnected fashion, it is fame that seems to 
grow no dimmer with the lapse of time. Genealogy 
has charms for few people, and Welsh genealogy, to 
the Saxon who has not served some kind of appren- 
ticeship to it, is notoriously formidable. But there 
will be Welsh readers of an assuredly more sympa- 
thetic turn of mind who, not having at their fingers' 
ends, perhaps, the details of the national hero's 
origin, will be not ungrateful for them. 

Owen of Glyndyfrdwy, commonly called Owen 
Glyndwr, came of the princely house of Powys, and 



1399] Birth and Early Life 85 

was a direct descendant in the male line of the cele- 
brated Bleddyn ap Cynvyn, Prince of Powys, and 
for a short time of Gwynedd also, whose reign al- 
most exactly covered the period of the Norman 
conquest of England. The second in descent from 
Bleddyn was the last Prince of United Powys, 
and this was Madoc ap Meredith, who died in 11 59. 
Readers of the introductory chapter will remember 
that Powys, between the upper millstone of Norman 
power and the nether one of North Welsh patriotism, 
began to temporise and give way long before the 
Edwardian conquest. Its Princes would have been 
more than mortal if their politics had not been of 
an unsteady kind. They frankly accepted the Nor- 
man as " Emperor in London " somewhat early, 
thus accepting the inevitable, but could not resist 
the temptation when Welsh affairs were prospering 
to break away to the national side. While gaining 
at this cost some immunity from Norman greed and 
a measure of semi-independence, the Powys Princes 
were not wholly trusted by either party, and some- 
times felt the vengeance of both. In 11 59 Powys- 
land fell in half ; Powys Uchaf, or, roughly speaking, 
Montgomeryshire, being given to Madoc's famous 
nephew, Owen Cyfeiliog, warrior, poet, founder of 
Strata Marcella Abbey, and author of The Hirlds 
Horn ; Lower Powys, or Powys Fadog, the country 
of the Dee and Ceiriog, fell to Madoc's son, Griffith 
ap Madoc. This last was followed by another 
Madoc, who in 1200 founded the splendid Abbey of 
Valle Crucis, whose ruins, standing as they do in the 
loveliest nook of the Vale of Llangollen, are justly 



86 Owen Glyndwr 1359- 

celebrated as presenting one of the most exquisite 
pictures of the kind in Britain. Beneath its grass- 
grown aisles lies the dust of the chieftain of this 
line of Powys. To a height of eight hundred feet 
above its crumbled walls and gables, still graceful in 
their decay, springs an isolated cone-shaped hill, on 
whose sharp crown stands a pile of ragged, splint- 
ered ruins placed in weird, suggestive fashion against 
a background of sky. This is Dinas Bran, the most 
proudly perched mediaeval fortress in Wales, perhaps 
in all Britain. Here in this eagle's nest, swung be- 
twixt earth and heaven, lived the Princes of Powys 
Fadog; and no more fitting refuge could be im- 
agined for men who, like them, had sometimes to 
look eastward for their foes and sometimes to the 
west. It was in 1270, close to the final conquest, 
that Madoc's son Grififith died, after dividing his Hfe 
between friendship with the English King and 
repentant alliances with his own race. He had 
married Emma, daughter of James, Lord Audley, 
who had done great service for Henry HI. against 
the Welsh with a body of German cavalry. The 
death of this Grififith ap Madoc is the last event 
recorded in the Welsh Chronicle. It is supposed 
that the monks of Conway and YstradfBur, who 
conjointly compiled it, could not bring themselves 
to put on record the sad events of the next twelve 
years, the last years of Welsh independence. Grif- 
fith's son, another Madoc, followed, and died in 
seven years, leaving two young sons, and dividing 
his inheritance between them. The elder, Llew- 
elyn, had Dinas Bran with Yale and Bromfield, 




HOLT CASTLE. 

FROM OLD PRINT. 



1399] Birth and Early Life 87 

while Griffith had Chirk and the territory attached 
to it. The orphan boys, their father having been 
tenant in capite of Edward the First, became that 
monarch's wards, Edward, as was customary, handed 
them over to the guardianship of two of his nobles, 
selecting in this case the great Marcher barons, War- 
ren and Roger Mortimer. Trusteeships were not in 
those days, even under favourable conditions, the 
thankless and unprofitable affairs they are now. 
Warren had Llewelyn and Dinas Bran ; Roger Morti- 
mer, Griffith and Chirk. A Welsh ward in the hands 
of a Norman Lord Marcher must have been a lamb 
among wolves indeed ; and as every one, no doubt, 
expected, under conditions so painfully tempting, 
the two boys in due course disappeared and were no 
more seen, while two magnificent castles arose at 
Chirk and Holt respectively, with a view to securing 
to these unjust stewards their ill-gotten territory. A 
black tale, which posterity has accepted, crept steadily 
about, to the effect that a deep pool in the Dee be- 
neath Holt Castle could tell of a midnight tragedy 
therein enacted. The two boys at any rate disap- 
peared, and the Earls, according to custom, suc- 
ceeded to their estates. Nor is it very likely that 
the King, who himself had a slice of them in that 
outlying fragment of Flint still conspicuous on the 
map of England, asked many questions. 

It seems that such conscience as Earl Warren pos- 
sessed was smitten with compunction as years went 
on, and these twinges he thought to allay by restor- 
ing a fragment of the property to the family he had 
so outraged. When the King was sitting at Rhudd- 



Owen Glyndwr [1359- 



lan in 1282 the remorseful Earl petitioned that the 
manors of Glyndyfrdwy on the Dee beyond Llan- 
gollen and of Cynllaeth a few miles to the south of 
it, should be restored to Griffith, an uncle of the two 
boys whose fate weighed, let us hope, upon his soul. 

In this manner Griffith succeeded to these estates 
and was known as Y Baron Gwyn, or " the White 
Baron," Lord of Glyndyfrdwy in Yale, dying about 
1300. Fourth in direct descent from him and occu- 
pying the same position was Owen Glyndwr's father, 
Griffith Vychan {i. e., " the little " or " the younger "), 
the preceding owner having been a Griffith too. To 
him succeeded Owen, as eldest son, holding his two 
manors, like his fathers before him, direct from the 
King. On his mother's side Owen's descent was 
quite as distinguished, — even more so if one is to 
believe that his mother, Elen, was a great-grand- 
daughter of Catherine, the daughter of the last 
Llewelyn. Putting this aside, however, as mere 
tradition, it will be enough to say that Griffith 
Vychan's wife came from South Wales and was a 
daughter of Thomas ap Llewelyn ap Rhys, a descend- 
ant of the Princes of Deheubarth, Lord of Iscoede 
Vchirwen in Cardigan and of Trefgarn in the parish 
of Brawdy, Pembrokeshire. He had two daughters, 
co-heiresses, the elder of whom, Elen, married Owen's 
father, while the younger became the wife of Tudor 
ap Gronow of Penmynydd, the grandfather of the 
famous Owen Tudor. It will be seen, therefore, 
that Thomas ap Llewelyn was the ancestor both of 
Glyndwr and of our present King. 

Owen was actually born in the South Welsh home 



1399] Birth and Early Life 89 

of his mother's family and inherited property from 
her which no doubt added to his wealth and conse- 
quence. Trefgarn Owen, Trefgarn West (or "castel''), 
still exists as a farmhouse, and the tradition that 
Owen was born in it is likely long to outlast the edi- 
fice itself. This event occurred probably in the year 
1359, in the heyday of the successful wars in France, 
so that it is quite possible that Griffith Vychan may 
have been among the crowd of Welsh gentlemen 
who followed the banners of Edward the Black 
Prince across the Channel. This would quite ac- 
count for the presence of Owen's mother at such a 
time in the home of her fathers ; and as we know 
nothing of his childhood, it is perhaps permissible to 
indulge in conjectures that have about them some 
reasonable probability. 

Of Owen's early manhood and domestic life, how- 
ever, quite enough is known to dissipate the notion 
engendered by Shakespeare, and but faintly discour- 
aged by English historians, that he was a wild Welsh 
chieftain, a sort of picturesque mountaineer. On the 
contrary, he was a man accustomed to courts and 
camps, and, judged by the standard of his time, an 
educated and polished gentleman. The first actual 
record we have of him is on September 3, 1386, 
when he gave evidence at Chester as a witness in the 
greatest and most prolonged lawsuit that had ever, 
in England, filled the public eye. This was the cele- 
brated case of Scrope and Grosvenor, the point in 
dispute relating solely to a coat of arms. It lasted 
four years and nearly every prominent person in 
the country at one time or another gave evidence. 



go Owen Gly^idwr [1359- 

Among these appears the name of '^Oweyn Sire de 
Glendore de age XXVII ans et pluis," also that of 
"Tudor de Glindore,'' his brother, who was some three 
years younger than Owen, and fell ultimately in his 
service. Of the nature of his evidence we know 
nothing. The entry is only valuable as giving weight 
to the year 1359 as the most likely date of his birth. 
In the social economy of Wales, Owen's forbears, 
since they lost at the Edwardian conquest, in the 
manner related, the chieftainship of Powys Fadog, 
had been simply minor barons or private gentlemen 
of fair estate. They had nothing like the ofificial 
position, the wealth, or the power of the Lord 
Marchers. Still they owed no allegiance, as did many 
of the lesser nobility, to any great Marcher baron, 
but held their estates in North Wales direct from the 
King himself. And we may well suppose that with 
the long memories of the Welsh no Marcher baron, 
no Mortimer, nor Gray, nor Talbot, whether in peace 
or war, was in their eyes so great a man as simple 
Owen of Glyndyfrdwy, on whose modest patrimony 
the vast estates of these interlopers encroached. As, 
in the ancient tribal laws of Wales, it took nine gen- 
erations for an alien or servile family to qualify for 
admission to full rights, so it was equally difficult to 
make a medieval Welshman realise that the ejected 
landowners and princes of their own race were other 
than temporary sufferers. They could not believe 
that Providence intended to perpetuate so great an 
outrage. They recognised in their hearts no other 
owner but the old stock, whatever the exigencies of 
the times might compel them to do with their lips. 



1399] Birth and Early Life 91 

and even their spears and bows, while every vagrant 
bard and minstrel helped to fix the sentiment more 
firmly in their breasts. 

Owen himself, as a man of the world, had, of course, 
no such delusions. No one, however, when the time 
was ripe, knew better than he how to work upon the 
feelings of those who had. A family grievance of 
his own, as we have shown, he might justifiably have 
nursed, but there is no reason to suppose that he 
was on bad terms with the houses either of Warren 
or Mortimer. Indeed, he is said to have been es- 
quire at one time to the Earl of Arundel. His local 
quarrels lay, as we shall see, to the north and rested 
wholly on personal grounds, having no relation 
whatever to the wrongs of his great-great-grand- 
father. 

In the only signature extant of Owen previous to 
his assumption of princely honours, we find him 
describing himself as " Oweyn ap Griffith, Dominus 
de Glyn D'wfrdwy." To dwell upon the innumerable 
ways in which his name and title were spelt by Nor- 
man and Celtic writers, contemporary and otherwise, 
in times when writers' pens vaguely followed their 
ears, would be, of course, absurd. The somewhat 
formidable sounding name of Glyndyfrdwy simply 
means the Glen of the Dwrfdwy or Dyfrdwy, which 
in turn is the original and still the Welsh name for 
the river Dee. About the first syllable of this word 
philologists have no scope for disagreement, " Dwr" 
or " Dwfr " signifying water ; but concerning the ter- 
minal syllable there is room for some difference of 
opinion. It will be sufficient for us here to say that 



92 Owen Glyndwr [1359- 

the derivations which seem to the eye most obvious 
are not so much in favour as that from " Diw," 
sacred or divine. This attribute at any rate has been 
bestowed on the chief and most beautiful of North 
Welsh rivers by English and Welsh poets from 
Spenser to Tennyson and, according to the former, 
"by Britons long ygone," 

In regard, however, to the pronunciation of the 
name of Owen's patrimon)^, when I have said that 
the very natives of the historic hamlet slur the name 
into something like Glyndowdy, — a rare luxury 
among the Welsh, — it is not surprising that Anglo- 
Norman chroniclers and others have made havoc of 
it with their phonetic spelling. Even Welsh writers 
have been unsteady upon the point. And Owen of 
Glyndyfrdwy probably figures under more designa- 
tions than any hero who ever lived : Glendour, 
Glindor, Glindore, Glendurdy, Glyndurdu, and Glen- 
dowerdy, are but a few selected specimens. 

English historians, with characteristic contempt of 
Welsh detail, have selected the last and the most un- 
likely of them all. In his own country Owen was 
generally known during his later life and ever since 
his death as Glyndwr, the spelling to which I have ad- 
hered in these pages. It may perhaps not be out of 
place to note that the Welsh " w " is equivalent to a 
"oo," and by a Welsh tongue the terminal "r" is, 
of course, strongly marked. 

Of the early youth of Glyndwr history tells us 
nothing, nor, again, is it known what age he had 
reached when his father died and the estate came 
into his possession. It is supposed that like so many 



1399] Birth and Early Life 93 

Welshmen of his time he went to Oxford ; but this, 
after all, must be mere surmise, though, judging by 
the bent of his life at that period, we seem to have 
good grounds for it. In such case it is likely 
enough that he took a leading part in the ferocious 
faction fights with which the jealousies of English, 
Welsh, and Irish students so often enlivened the 
cramped streets of medieval Oxford. It is quite 
certain, however, that Owen went to London and be- 
came a student of the Inns of Court, a course vir- 
tually confined in those times to the sons of the 
wealthy and well-born. There is something very 
natural in the desire of a large Welsh landowner of 
that time to familiarise himself with English law, 
for the two codes, Welsh and English, to say no- 
thing of compromises between them, existed side by 
side over nearly all Wales, and one can well under- 
stand the importance of some knowledge of Anglo- 
Norman jurisprudence to a leading Welshman like 
Glyndwr, who must have had much to do, both 
directly and indirectly, with both kinds of courts. 
That he was no wild Welsh squire has been already 
shown, and it was not unnatural that a youth of 
handsome person, high lineage, and good estate 
should drift, when his law studies were completed, 
into the profession of arms and to the English Court. 
Here he soon found considerable favour and in course 
of time became squire of the body, or "scutiger," not, 
as most Welsh authorities have persisted, and still 
persist, to King Richard the Second, but to his 
cousin of Bolingbroke, the future Henry the Fourth. 
This latter view is certainly supported by the only 



94 Owen Glyndwr [1359- 

documentary evidence extant, as Mr. Wylie in his 
able and exhaustive history of that monarch points 
out. " Regi moderno ante susceptum regnum," is the 
sentence in the Annales describing Glyndwr's posi- 
tion in this matter, and it surely removes any doubt 
that Bolingbroke is the King alluded to. In such 
case Owen must have shared those perils and adven- 
tures by land and sea in which the restless Henry 
engaged. It is strange enough, too, that men linked 
together in a relationship so intimate should have 
spent the last fifteen years of their lives in a struggle 
so persistent and so memorable as did these two. 
Bolingbroke began this series of adventures soon after 
the loss of his wife, about the year 1390, and we may 
therefore, with a fair probability of truth, picture 
Glyndwr at that grand tournament at Calais where 
Henry so distinguished himself, and poor Richard by 
comparison showed to such small advantage. He 
may also have been present at the capture of Tu- 
nis, where English and French to the wonder of all 
men fought side by side without friction or jealousy ; 
or again with Bolingbroke on his long journey in 
1393 to Jerusalem, or rather towards it, for he never 
got there. There were adventures, too, which Owen 
may have shared, with German knights upon the 
Baltic, and last, though by no means least, with 
Sigismund, King of Hungary, at that memorable 
scene upon the Danube when he was forced into his 
ships by the victorious Turks. 

Yet the tradition is so strong that Glyndwr was in 
the personal service of Richard during the close of 
that unfortunate monarch's reign, that one hesitates 



1399] Birth and Early Life 95 

to brush it aside from mere lack of written evidence. 
Nor indeed does the fact of his having been Henry's 
esquire constitute any valid reason for doing so. 
It is not very likely that, when the latter in 1398 was 
so unjustly banished by Richard to an uneventful 
sojourn in France, Glyndwr, with the cares of a family 
and estate growing upon him, would have been eager 
to share his exile. On the other hand, he must have 
been by that time well known to Richard, and with 
his Pembrokeshire property and connections may 
well, like so many Welshmen, have been tempted 
later on to embark in that ill-fated Irish expedition 
which promised plunder and glory, but turned out 
to be incidentally the cause of Richard's undoing. 
That this feckless monarch possessed some peculiar 
charm and a capacity for endearing individuals to 
his person seems tolerably evident, however strange. 
That the Welsh were devoted to him we know, so 
that perhaps the loyalty to Richard with which most 
Welsh writers credit Glyndwr arose from such per- 
sonal service rendered after the departure of Boling- 
broke for France. And it is quite possible that he 
went, as they assert, with the King on that last 
ill-timed campaign which cost him his crown. 

Some declare that he was among the small knot of 
faithful followers who, when his army abandoned 
the slothful Richard on his return to Pembrokeshire 
from Ireland, rode across country with him to Con- 
way, where Salisbury in despair had just been com- \^ 
pelled to disband his freshly mustered Welshmen for 
lack of food and pay. If this is true, Glyndwr, who 
most certainly never lost battles from sloth or timid- 



96 Owen Glyndwr [1359- 

ity when he became in one sense a king, must have 
witnessed with much sympathy the lamentations of 
Xi the faithful Salisbury : 

"OjCall back yesterday, bid time return, 
And thou shalt have ten thousand fighting men ; 
To-day, to-day, unhappy day too late, 
O'erthrows thy joys, friends, fortune, and thy state." 

All this occurred in September of the year 1399. 
Henry, taking advantage of Richard's absence, had 
landed, it will be remembered, at Ravenspur in York- 
shire some two months earlier. He found discon- 
tent with the existing state of affairs everywhere 
prevalent and the recognised heir to the throne but 
lately dead. The situation was tempting to a degree. 
Bolingbroke's first intention had almost certainly 
aimed at nothing more than the recovery of his own 
immense estates of which he had been most un- 
justly and unscrupulously deprived by his royal 
cousin. But unexpected temptations confronted 
him. He was met on landing by the Percys and 
soon afterwards by other great nobles, who, from 
what motives it matters little, encouraged him to 
seize the throne. To make a short story of a famous 
episode in English history, Bolingbroke found him- 
self by September, when Richard was returning with 
fatal tardiness from Ireland, not indeed actually 
crowned, but in full possession of London and other 
districts and virtually acknowledged as King. In 
the same month he was heading a triumphant march 
by way of Bristol at the head of a great and gathering 
army towards North Wales, where Richard lay, as we 



1399] Birth and Early Life 97 

have seen, at Conway, helplessly wringing his hands 
and cursing the fate he had brought upon himself. 

According to the Welsh version, Glyndwr must 
have been present when Percy, Earl of Northumber- 
land, who in years to come was to be so vitally bound 
up with his fortunes, entered the great hall of Con- 
way Castle, to all appearances a friendly and un- 
armed envoy of Henry of Bolingbroke. We all 
remember his soft speech and how with the utmost 
deference and humility he told King Richard that all 
his dear cousin required of him was to ride back by 
his side to London and there summon a Parliament, 
and bring to justice certain persons, who, for the past 
few years, had been his evil counsellors. If Glyndwr 
was in truth there, he must almost certainly have 
seen these two illustrious personages commit that 
astounding piece of perjury and sacrilege in Conway 
church, when they knelt side by side and swore be- 
fore the altar and upon the sacred elements that 
their intentions towards each other were wholly 
friendly and without guile. He must then, too, 
have heard King Richard, when scarcely off his 
knees, swear that if only he could get his dear cousin 
of Bolingbroke into his hands he would put him to 
such a cruel death it should be long spoken of even 
in Turkey. Perhaps it was the memory of the spec- 
tacle that decided Glyndwr on certain occasions in 
his after life to show a curious reluctance to " put his 
trust in princes," however loyal in the abstract he 
might be to their memory. If we follow the Welsh 
tradition, he saw this game of duplicity to the bitter 
end and made one of the small band of horsemen 



98 Owen Glyndwr [1359- 

who crossed the estuary of the Conway in the dawn 
of an autumn morning with the puling king on 
their way to Rhuddlan Castle, whose ivy-mantled 
ruins still make such a charming picture amid the 
meadows where the Clwyd winds its tidal course 
towards the sea. Long before Richard got there, and 
while still surmounting the steep headland of Rhos 
above Old Colwyn, he caught sight of the troops 
which the crafty Northumberland had left there in 
concealment. It was too late to retreat. The 
waves roared far beneath him and rocky crags tow- 
ered high above his head. He saw that he was un- 
done and read in the situation the black treachery he 
would have himself dealt out with scant scruple to 
anyone lingering in the path of self-indulgence, 
which he had so long trodden. 

" O that I were as great 
As is my grief, or greater than my name, 
Or that I could forget what I have been. 
Or not remember what I must be now." 

Amid faces from which the friendly mask had 
already half fallen and spears that may well have had 
an ominous glitter in his eyes, the disheartened King 
passed on to Rhuddlan and from Rhuddlan to the 
strong castle of Flint. Here in the morning came 
to him his cousin of Bolingbroke, inquiring, among 
other things, whether he had broken his fast, for he 
had a long ride before him. Whereat Richard de- 
manded what great army was that which darkened 
the sands of Dee below the castle walls. Henry re- 



1399] Birth and Early Life 99 

plied curtly that they were Londoners for the most 
part, and that they had come to take him prisoner to 
the Tower, and nothing else would satisfy them. If 
Glyndwr were indeed present it must have been a 
strange enough sight for him, this meeting of his 
former patron and his present master, under such 
sinister circumstances, in the gloomy chambers of 
Flint Castle. If he were still here it may be safely 
assumed that, like the rest of Richard's escort, he 
went no farther. Even if he were absent, quietly 
hawking and hunting at Glyndyfrdwy, there would 
be nothing irrelevant in calling to the reader's recol- 
lection a famous episode, the chief actors in which 
had so far-reaching an influence on the Welsh hero's 
life ; how all semblance of respect for the King's 
person was dropped ; how, mounted of design upon a 
sorry nag, he was led with many indignities along the 
weary road to London and there made to read his 
own abdication in favour of his captor and cousin ; 
and how he was hurried from fortress to fortress, 
till at Pontefract he ended his misspent life in a man- 
ner that to this day remains a mystery — all this is 
a matter of historic notoriety. Whether the unfort- 
unate Richard died of grief, failing health, and lack 
of attention, or whether he was the victim of delib- 
erate foul play, only concerns us here from the fact 
of his name occurring so frequently in our story as a 
rallying-cry for Henry's enemies, and from the mys- 
tery attaching to the manner of his death being for 
years a genuine grievance among the rank and file of 
the disaffected, and a handy weapon for their more 
designing leaders. 
LofC. 



lOO Owen Glyndwr [1359- 

How much of his life Glyndwr had so far spent 
in his native valleys of the Dee or Cynllaeth it is 
impossible to guess. Perhaps at odd times a good 
deal of it ; seeing that he was now over forty, had 
found time to marry a wife, a lady of the neighbour- 
hood, by whom he had become the father of a numer- 
ous family, and to win for himself great popularity 
and a name for hospitality. The famous Welsh poet, 
Gryffydd Llwyd, much better known by his bardic 
name of " lolo Goch," or the Red lolo, was his con- 
stant friend and companion at this time, and became, 
later on, the Laureate of his Court and of his cause. 
In the thick volume which the extant works of lolo 
fill he has left us a graphic though somewhat fantas- 
tic picture of Glyndwr's domestic life. I have al- 
ready shown how the Welsh chieftain owned the two 
estates of Glyndyfrdwy and Sycherth or Cynllaeth in 
his native district, while from his mother he inherited 
property in Pembroke. The two former places were 
near together. If the mountain fringes of Glyn- 
dyfrdwy, which ran east and west, did not actually 
touch the Sycherth estate, which ran north and 
south with the Avaters of the Cynllaeth brook, there 
could have been little but the deep Vale of the 
Ceiriog to divide them. There were mansions upon 
both estates, and, though Glyndyfrdwy was the more 
important property, it was in the less striking but 
still charming valley down which the Cynllaeth bab- 
bles to meet the Tanat beneath the woodlands of 
Llangedwyn, that Sycherth or Sychnant, the more 
imposing of Glyndwr's two houses, was situated. 
This valley lies snugly tucked away behind the first 



1399] Birth and Early Life loi 

ridge of hills which rises abruptly behind Oswestry 
and so conspicuously marks the Welsh frontier. It 
practically skirts the English border, and Offa's Dyke 
trails its still obvious course along the lofty summit 
of its eastern boundary. Scarcely anywhere, indeed, 
does the Principality begin in a social sense with 
such striking abruptness. Once over the hill from 
Shropshire, and within a short hour's drive from 
Oswestry, and you are for every practical purpose in 
the heart of Celtic Wales. Few travellers come this 
way, for it is on the road to nowhere that the out- 
side world takes count of, and few strangers but an 
occasional antiquary ever see the Avell-defined and 
flat-topped tumulus on which the manor house of 
the most famous of all Welshmen stood. It lies in 
a meadow between a wooded hill and the Cynllaeth 
brook, not far from Llansilin, and is very conspicu- 
ous from the road leading up the valley to the little 
hamlet, whose churchyard holds the dust of another 
famous Welshman, the seventeenth- century poet, 
Huw Morris. The inner and the outer moat of 
Sycherth are still more or less perfect, and there are 
even yet, or were not long ago, plain traces of stone- 
work beneath the turf. It will be well, however, to 
let lolo, who was there so much and knew it so well, 
tell us what it looked like in his time, five hundred 
years ago. 

There was a gate-house, he says, a strong tower, 
and a moat. The house contained nine halls, each 
furnished with a wardrobe filled with the raiment of 
Owen's retainers. Near the house on a verdant bank 
was a wooden building supported upon posts and 



I02 Owen Glyndwr 11359- 

roofed with tiles. Here were eight apartments in 
which the guests slept. There was a church, too, in 
the form of a cross, and several chapels. The man- 
sion was surrounded with every convenience and ev- 
ery essential for maintaining a profuse hospitality : 
a park, warren and pigeon-house, mill, orchards, and 
vineyard ; a fish-pond well stocked with " gwyniads" 
from Bala Lake, a heronry, and plenty of game of all 
sorts. The cook, lolo declares with much enthusi- 
asm, was one of the very best ; and the hospitality 
of the establishment so unstinted that the ofifice of 
gate porter was a sinecure. Our bard indeed makes 
his poetic lips literally smack over the good things 
beneath which Glyndwr's table groaned. Nor does 
he forget his hostess : 

" The best of wives, 
Happy am I in her wine and metheglyn ; 
Eminent woman of a knightly family, 
Honourable, beneficent, noble. 
Her children come forward two by two, 
A beautiful nest of chieftains." 

Charming, however, as is the site of Sycherth, nest- 
ling beneath its wooded hill and looking out towards 
the great masses of the Berwyn Mountains, it would 
ill compare with that almost matchless gem of Welsh 
scenery, where the vales of Edeyrnion and Llangol- 
len meet among the mantling woodlands and sound- 
ing gorges of Glyndyfrdwy. It is a curiously apt 
coincidence that one of the most romantic spots in 
Wales should have been the cradle of the man who 
is without doubt the most romantic personage in 



1399] Birth and Early Life 103 

Welsh history. Scarcely anyone, as I have said, 
ever finds his way to Sycherth ; but thousands of 
travellers every summer follow by road or rail that 
delightful route which, hugging the Dee from Rua- 
bon almost to its source beyond Bala Lake, re- 
veals new beauties at every turn. Such being the 
case I would venture to ask any intending traveller 
from Ruabon to Bala and Dolgelly to take special 
note of a spot just five minutes to the westward of 
Glyndyfrdwy station, where the wide torrent of the 
Dee, after clinging to the railroad for some distance, 
takes a sudden bend to the north. Precisely here, 
but perched high upon the other side of the railroad 
and so nearly overhanging it as not to be readily vis- 
ible, is a green tumulus crowned by a group of wind- 
swept fir trees. This is locally known as " Glyndwr's 
Mount," not because, as was probably the case at 
Sycherth, it was erected as a foundation for the 
chieftain's house, — since this one here is evidently 
prehistoric, — but merely from the fact that the house 
stood at its foot. Vague traces of the house are still 
visible beneath the turf of the narrow meadow that 
lies squeezed in between the Holyhead Road on the 
upper side and the river and railroad on the lower 
side.* Whether Sycherth was Owen's favourite home 
in peace or not, Glyndyfrdwy was most certainly his 
more natural headquarters in war, while in his own 



* A friend of the writer, who lived to an advanced age, was told in 
his youth by old men in the neighbourhood that they could remem- 
ber when there was a good deal of stonework to be seen lying about. 
Now, however, there is little to mark the spot but the suggestive un- 
dulations of the turf. 



I04 Owen Glyndwr [I3b9- 

district. Both, however, were burnt down by Prince 
Henry, as we shall see later on, in one of his expedi- 
tions against the Welsh. As for the mound, it is a 
notable landmark, being one of a series which are 
sprinkled along the Dee valley in such fashion as to 
indicate beyond a doubt that if they were indeed 
the tombs of dead warriors, they were also most ad- 
mirable signal-stations for living ones. But what- 
ever the origin of this one it had at any rate no 
connection with times so recent as those of Glyndwr. 
The only surviving relic of that hero's residence is a 
long, narrow oaken table of prodigious thickness, 
which is yet treasured in a neighbouring farmhouse. 
A meadow below is still called " Parliament field," 
while the massive old stone homestead of Pen-y-bont, 
half a mile up the valley, contains a portion of the 
walls which formed, it is believed, Glyndwr's stables, 
or, more probably, his farm buildings. But as many 
of these local points will come up in the course of 
my story, it is time to say something of the lady 
who, so entirely blest in her earlier years, was to 
spend her later ones amid such stress and storm, and 
to share so precarious a crown. 

This lady bountiful of Sycherth and Glyndyfrdwy, 
so extolled by lolo, came of a notable Flintshire 
house. She was the daughter of Sir David Hanmer 
of Hanmer, a family long settled in that detached 
fragment of Flint known then as Maelor Seisnig, or 
" English Maelor." Sir David had been appointed by 
Richard the Second one of the Justices^of the King's 
Bench and at the same time knighted. There are 
Hanmers even yet in those parts ; till comparatively 



13991 Birth and Early Life 105 

lately there were still Hanmers of Hanmer. More 
enduring than a human stock, there are monuments in 
stone and brass that tell the story, common enough 
in England, of a family that for centuries were great 
in their own district without ever making their name 
a familiar one to the average British ear. The Han- 
mers, too, were a fair specimen of many families in 
the Welsh Marches who had both English and Welsh 
blood in their veins, and whose sympathies were di- 
vided when social animosities took a warlike turn. 
It was very much so indeed with the Hanmers when 
Glyndwr's war by degrees forced everyone to take 
a side in self-defence. Of Glyndwr's sons only two 
are directly mentioned, Grififith and Meredith, both 
of whom we shall find fighting by his side, but at 
such an advanced stage of the struggle that it seems 
probable they were but boys when hostilities broke 
out. We hear dimly of three more, Madoc, Thomas, 
and John. Of the daughters somewhat more is 
known ; and they must for the most part have been 
older, since it seems that three were married before 
the troubles began. The eldest, Isabel, became the 
wife of a Welshman, Adda ab lorwerth Ddu. The 
second, Elizabeth, married Sir John Scudamore of 
Kent Church and Holme Lacy in Herefordshire, 
whose descendants still retain the name and the first 
of these historic manors. Another, Janet, was given 
to John Crofts of Croft Castle in the same county, 
and the youngest, Margaret, called after her mother, 
took another Herefordshire gentleman, Roger Mon- 
nington of Monnington. The most celebrated was 
the fourth daughter, Jane, whom we shall find being 



io6 Owen Glyndwr [1359- 

united under romantic circumstances to her father's 
illustrious captive and subsequent ally, Sir Edmund 
Mortimer. She it is, of course, whom Shakespeare 
brings upon his stage and, in her song to Hotspur 
and Mortimer, 

" Makes Welsh as sweet as ditties highly penned, 
Sung by a fair queen in a summer's bower." 

The Commote of Glyndyfrdwy, which formed 
Owen's Dee property, lay in the then newly formed 
county of Merioneth, though it was wedged in by 
the Marcher lordships of Chirk, Bromfield, and Yale 
on the east ; while to the north, Denbighshire as yet 
having no existence, it touched the Norrhan lord- 
ships of Ruthin and Denbigh in the Vale of Clwyd. 
But Glyndwr held his estates direct from the King, 
having manor courts of his own, and resorting in 
more important matters to the assize towns of Dol- 
gellyand Harlech. Corwen must have been actually 
on his property but, though a notable gathering-spot 
in war time, it had no corporate existence, and was 
probably even more insignificant in size than the 
other Merioneth towns. The Welsh did not herd 
together in towns or villages. Each individual or 
group of individuals dwelt on their small homesteads 
scattered about the hillsides or cut out of the forests 
which then covered so much of the country and had 
contributed so greatly to its defence. 

Owen in his home life must have been something 
of an unique personality. He was the equal in breed- 
ing and in knowledge of the world of the great 



1399] Birth and Early Life 107 

barons around him, — the Greys, Talbots, and Charl- 
tons, — and of sufficient estate to be hinaself a grand 
seigneur. Yet his hospitable house must have offered 
a remarkable contrast in the eyes of the natives to 
the grim fortresses of Chirk, or Dinas Bran, or 
Ruthin, whose owners' mission in life, so far as the 
Welsh were concerned, was to make themselves un- 
pleasant. Their claws, it is true, had been consider- 
ably cut down by Edward the First, but the same 
blood was there ; and the habit of former years, 
which looked upon the killing of a Welshman as a 
meritorious action, only wanted an opportunity to 
reassert itself. 

Owen's rent-roll was about two hundred pounds a 
year, and some slight mental effort is required to real- 
ise that this was a very large one, both actually when 
judged by the contemporary value of money, and 
relatively as regards the financial standing of private 
landowners, particularly in Wales, where this was 
low. Owen was probably one of the richest native 
Welshmen of his day. Few if any in the north had 
such an opportunity of showing the contrast between 
the simple and profuse hospitality of a native aristo- 
crat, and the stiff, contemptuous solemnity of the 
lord of a Norman fortress. It was easy enough for 
the descendant of Madoc ap Griffith to make himself 
popular upon the the banks of the upper Dee, and 
Owen seems to have added a desire to do so to the 
personal magnetism that the whole story of his life 
shows him to have possessed in a very high degree. 
All the bards of his own time and that immediately 
following unite in this praise of his hospitality. 



io8 Owen Glyndwr [1359- 

Amid much fanciful exaggeration, such for instance 
as that which compares Sycherth to " Westminster 
Abbey and Cheapside," there is no doubt about the 
esteem and admiration in which Owen was held by 
the Welsh and particularly by the bards who lived 
at free quarters in his roomy halls. But all this 
began before he had any idea of utilising his position 
and popularity in the manner that has made him 
immortal. There is really no authority at all for 
making him a follower of Richard. All Wales and 
Cheshire were indignant at the King's deposition and 
treatment, and Glyndwr, even supposing his Irish 
expedition to have been mythical, may well have 
shared this indignation. But in such a case his 
antecedents were, from private attachments, wholly 
Lancastrian. Not only had he been Bolingbroke's 
squire, but his former master, the Earl of Arundel, 
had been a pronounced foe of the late King. Dis- 
content and turbulence were brooding everywhere, 
but we have no reason to suppose that Glyndwr at 
this date, the last year of the century, had any ex- 
cuse whatever for entering into dynastic quarrels. 
On the contrary, unless the story of his recent con- 
nection with Richard be true, he had much reason to 
be contented with Bolingbroke's accession. At this 
moment he was in all probability living quietly at 
Sycherth, hunting deer amid the birchen woods and 
bracken glades of the Berwyn and hawking in the 
meadows of Llansilin. Amid all the pleasures, how- 
ever, which filled his rural life there rankled one 
deep and bitter grievance, and this concerned the up- 
land tract of Croesau that lay upon the north-western 



1399] 



Birth and Early Life 



t09 



fringe of his Glyndyfrdwy manor, over which he and 
his powerful neighbour, Reginald Grey, Lord of 
Ruthin, had been falling out this many a long day. 
The details of this quarrel, the primary cause of 
that decade of strife which desolated Wales and pro- 
foundly influenced the reign and embittered the life 
of Henry of Bolingbroke, must be reserved for an- 
other chapter. 





CHAPTER III 

GLYNDWR AND LORD GREY OF RUTHIN 



I4OO-14OI 

REGINALD, Lord Grey, of Ruthin, the prime 
cause of all the wars that devastated Wales 
and the English Marches throughout the first 
ten years of the fifteenth century, was a typical Lord 
Marcher, and was perhaps the worst of a fierce, un- 
scrupulous, and pitiless class. His ancestors had 
been in the Vale of Clwyd for over a hundred years. 
At Edward's conquest the first Earl had been planted 
by the King at Ruthin to overawe the Welsh of 
what is now northern Denbighshire and of the two 
recently created counties of Flint and Carnarvon 
which lay upon either side. There were other 
Lord Marchers and other English garrisons between 
Chester and Carnarvon, but at the time this story 
opens the Greys were beyond a doubt the most ar- 
dent and conspicuous props of the English Crown. 
The great Red Castle at Ruthin, the " Castell y 
Gwern Loch," had risen in Edward's time beside the 
upper waters of the Clwyd, and its ample ruins still 
cluster round the modern towers where the successors 



■Ji 

1 
i ^ 


-qfr'\r-i^|||||l|B|^^B^H 


* 


II. ^''^-^l^ 




i 



1400-1401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 1 1 1 

of the fierce Lord Marchers exercise a more peaceful 
sway. 

Around Ruthin Castle, as at Denbigh, Conway, and >/ 
Carnarvon, a group of English adventurers — sold- 
iers, tradesmen, clerks, and gentlemen — had gath- 
ered together and built for themselves habitations, 
aided by favourable charters from the King, and still 
greater favours from their lord, who leant upon their 
services in times of danger. They led profitable, 
if sometimes anxious lives. Welsh and English alike 
pleaded before the lordship courts, whose records 
may still be read by the curious in such matters. 
Both Welsh and English laws, theoretically at any 
rate, were administered within the lordship, but as 
the Lord Marcher was, within his own domain, a law 
unto himself, the state of affairs that existed at 
Ruthin and similar places was complicated and is 
not immediately pertinent to this story. It will be 
quite accurate enough for present purposes to de- 
scribe Grey as surrounded and supported by armed 
burghers and other dependents, mainly but not 
wholly of English blood, while the mass of the 
Welsh within his lordship, gentle and simple, re- 
mained obedient to his rule from fear and not from 
love. I need not trouble the reader with the limit- 
ations of his territory, but merely remark that it 
bordered upon that of Owen. 

Now, upon the wild upland between the Dee valley 
and the watershed of the Clwyd, lay the common 
of Croesau, whose disputed ownership eventually 
set Wales and England by the ears. This strip of 
land had originally belonged to Owen's estate of 



112 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

Glyndyfrdwy. Lord Grey, however, in Richard the 
Second's time, had, in high-handed fashion, appro- 
priated it to himself on the sole and poor excuse 
that it marched with his own domain. Glyndwr, 
being at that time probably no match for Grey at 
the game of physical force, possessed his fiery soul 
in patience, and carried the dispute in a peaceful 
and orderly manner to the King's court in London. 
Here the justice of his claim was recognised ; he 
won his suit and Lord Grey was compelled to with- 
draw his people from the disputed territory, cherish- 
ing, we may well believe, an undying grudge against 
the Welshman who, before the eyes of all the world 
and in an English court of justice, had got the better 
of him. 

Now, however, a new King was upon the throne, 
and Owen apparently out of favour. The oppor- 
tunity was too good an one to be missed by the 
grasping Norman, who, driving Owen's people off 
the disputed territory, annexed it once more to his 
own estate. Glyndwr nevertheless, whatever the 
cause may have been, proved himself even under 
this further provocation a law-abiding person, and, 
refraining from all retaliation, carried his suit once 
more to London and laid it before the Parliament 
which Henry summoned in the spring of 1400, 
six months after he had seized the throne. But 
Owen, though he had been esquire to the King, was 
now wholly out of favour, so much so as greatly to 
support the tradition that he had served the unfort- 
unate Richard in a like capacity. His suit was not 
even accorded the compliment of a hearing, but 



HOI] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 113 

was dismissed with contemptuous brevity. Trevor, 
Bishop of St. Asaph, who was then about the King's 
person and deeply in his confidence, protested in 
vain against the unjust and ill-advised course. As 
a Welshman, familiar with the condition of his own 
country, he solemnly warned the authorities against 
provoking a man who, though of only moderate 
estate, was so powerful and so popular among his 
own people. 

The Bishop's pleadings were of no avail. " What 
care we for the barefooted rascals? " was the scorn- 
ful reply. The Welsh were in fact already in an 
electrical condition. In spite of their general dis- 
content with English rule, they had been attached to 
Richard, and with that strength of personal loyalty 
which in a Celtic race so often outweighs reason, 
they resented with heartfelt indignation the usurpa- 
tion of Bolingbroke. They were very far from sure 
that Richard was even dead. If he were, then Henry 
had killed him, which made matters worse. But if 
in truth he actually still lived, they were inclined to 
murmur as loudly and with as much show of reason 
at his dethronement. Richard, it will be remem- 
bered, after having been compelled publicly and form- 
ally to abdicate the throne, had been imprisoned 
for a time in the Tower, and then secretly conveyed 
from castle to castle till he reached Pontefract, where 
he ended his wretched life. The manner of his death 
remains to this day a mystery, as has been intimated 
already. Whether he was murdered by Henry's 
orders or whether his weakened constitution suc- 
cumbed to sorrow and confinement or bad treatment, 

8 



1 1 4 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

no one will ever know. But his body, at any rate, was 
brought to London and there exposed in St. Paul's 
Cathedral for the space of three days, that all the 
Avorld might see that he was in truth dead. The 
men of Wales and the North and West of England 
had to take all this on hearsay, and were readily 
persuaded that some trickery had been played on 
the Londoners and that some substitute for Rich- 
ard had been exposed to their credulous gaze. For 
years it was the policy of Henry's enemies to circul- 
ate reports that Richard was still alive, and, as we 
shall see in due course, his ghost was not actually 
laid till the battle of Shrewsbury had been fought 
and won by Henry. Indeed, so late as 1406 the old 
Earl of Northumberland alleged, in a letter, the pos- 
sibility of his being alive, while even seven years 
after this Sh* John Oldcastle declared he would never 
acknowledge Parliament so long as his master. King 
Richard, still lived. 

Glyndwr, after the insults that he had received in 
London, returned home, as may well be conceived, 
not in the best of tempers ; Grey, however, was to 
perpetrate even a worse outrage upon him than that 
of which he had already been guilty and of a still 
more treacherous nature. It so happened that at 
this time the King was preparing for that expedi- 
tion against the Scots which started in July, 1400. 
Among the nobility and gentry whom he summoned 
to his standard was Glyndwr, and there is no rea- 
son to assume that the Welshman would have failed 
to answer the call. The summons, however, was 
sent through Lord Grey, in his capacity of chief 



1401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 115 

Marcher in North Wales ; and Grey, with incredibly 
poor spite, kept Owen in ignorance of it till it was 
too late for him either to join the King's army or 
to forward an explanation. Glyndwr was on this ac- 
count credited at Court with being a malcontent 
and a rebel ; and as there had been some brawling 
and turbulence upon the Welsh border the future 
chieftain's name was included among those whom it 
was Grey's duty, as it was his delight, to punish. 
There is no evidence that Owen had stirred. It is 
possible he might have made himself disagreeable to 
Grey upon the marches of their respective proper- 
ties. It would be strange if he had not. There is 
no mention, however, of his name in the trifling 
racial disturbances that were natural to so feverish a 
time. 

It seems pretty evident that if the malicious Lord 
Marcher had rested content with his plunder and let 
sleeping dogs lie, Owen, and consequently Wales, 
would never have risen. This ill-advised baron, 
however, was by no means content. He applied for 
further powers in a letter which is now extant, and 
got leave to proceed in force against Owen, among 
others, as a rebel, and to proclaim his estates, having 
an eye, no doubt, to their convenient propinquity in 
the event of confiscation. 

But before Owen comes upon the scene, and dur- 
ing this same summer, a most characteristic and 
entertaining correspondence was being carried on 
between the irascible Lord Grey and a defiant gen- 
tleman of North Wales, Griffith ap Dafydd ap Grif- 
fith, the " strengest thief in Wales," Grey calls him, 



1 1 6 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

which is to say that he accuses him of carrying off 
some horses from his park at Ruthin. The letters, 
which are in Sir Thomas Ellis's collection, are much 
too long to reproduce, but they show unmistakably 
and not without humour, the relations which existed 
between Lord Grey and some of his Welsh neigh- 
bours, who, already turbulent, were later on to follow 
Glyndwr into the field of battle. The King, before 
starting for Scotland and before getting Grey's let- 
ters, had commanded his Lord Marchers to use con- 
ciliation to all dissatisfied Welshmen and to offer 
free pardons to any who were openly defying his 
authority. 

Griffith ap Dafydd, it seems, had been promin- 
ent among these restive souls, but under a promise, 
he declares in his letter, of being made the 
Master Forester and " Keyshat " of Chirkeland 
under the King's charter, he had presented him- 
self at Oswestry and claimed both the pardon 
and the office. In the last matter his claim was 
scouted, according to his own account, with scan- 
dalous breach of faith, and even his bodily safety 
did not seem wholly secure from the King's friends. 
He narrates at some length the story of his wrongs, 
and tells Grey that he has heard of his intention 
to burn and slay in whatever country he [Griffith] 
is in. " Without doubt," he continues " as many 
men as ye slay and as many houses as ye burn for 
my sake, as many will I burn and slay for your 
sake," and " doute not that I will have bredde and 
ale of the best that is in your Lordschip." There 
is something delightfully inconsequent in Griffith's 



T401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 117 

method of ending this fire-breathing epistle : "Wret- 
ten in grete haste at the Park of Brunkiffe the Xlth 
day of June, I can no more, but God kepe your 
Worschipful estate in prosperity." 

Grey of Ruthin was filled with wrath at this impu- 
dence and replied to the " strengest thief in Wales " 
at great length, reserving his true sentiments, how- 
ever, for the conclusion, where he bursts into rhyme : 
" But we hoope we shall do thee a pryve thyng : A 
roope, a ladder and a ring, heigh in a gallowes for to 
heng. And thus shall be your endyng. And he that 
made the be ther to helpyng. And we on our behalf 
shall be well willing for thy letter is knowlechyng." 

It is quite evident that the Greys had not lived, 
aliens though they were, in the land of bards 
for five generations for nothing. Full of wrath, 
and by no means free from panic, Grey writes off in 
all haste to the young Prince Henry, who is acting as 
regent during his father's absence in the north. He 
encloses a duplicate of his answer to the " strengest 
thief in Wales " and advises the Prince of the " Mis- 
governance and riote which is beginning heer in the 
Marches of North Wales." He begs for a fuller 
commission to act against the rebels, one that will 
enable him to pursue and take them in the " Kyng's 
ground " ; in the counties, that is to say, where the 
King's writ runs, and not merely in the lordships 
which covered what are now the counties of Den- 
bigh and Montgomery. " But worshipful and gra- 
cious Lorde, ye most comaunden the Kynge's 
oflficers in every Cuntree to do the same." Grey 
goes on to declare that there are many ofificers, some 



1 1 8 Owen Glyndwr [i 4 co- 

in the King's shires, others in the lordships of Mor- 
timer at Denbigh and of Arundel at Dinas Bran and 
in Powys-land, that are " kin unto these men that be 
risen, and tyll ye putte these officers in better gov- 
ernance this Countrie of North Wales shall nevere 
have peese." He enclosed also the letter of the 
"strengest thief," and begs the Prince to read it and 
judge for himself what sort of people he has to face. 
He urges him to listen carefully to the full tidings 
that his poor messenger and esquire Richard Donne 
will give him, and to take counsel with the King for 
providing some more suf^cient means of curbing the 
turbulent Welshmen than he now has at his dis- 
posal. "Else trewly hitt will be an unruly Cuntree 
within short time." 

About the same time similar despatches to the 
Prince sitting in Council were flying across Wales 
penned by one of the King's own ofificers, the Cham- 
berlain of Carnarvon. These informed the author- 
ities, among other things, that the Constable of 
Harlech had trustworthy evidence of a certain Mere- 
dith ap Owen, under whose protection it may be 
mentioned Grififith ap Dafydd, Grey's correspond- 
ent, lived, being in secret negotiation with the men 
of the outer isles (" owt yles ") of Scotland, " through 
letters in and owt," that these Scottish Celts were to 
land suddenly at Abermaw (Barmouth), and that 
Meredith had warned his friends to be in readiness 
with horses and harness against the appointed time. 
It was also rumoured from this same source upon 
the Merioneth coast that men were buying and even 
stealing horses, and providing themselves with sad- 



1401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey -119 

dies, bows, arrows, and armour. " Recheles men of 
divers Countries," too, were assembling in desolate 
and wild places and meeting privily, though their 
councils were still kept secret, and by these means 
the young men of Wales were being greatly demor- 
alised. 

No special notice seems to have been taken of these 
urgent warnings by those whom the King during his 
absence in the north had left to guard his interests. 
Tumults and disturbances continued both in Wales 
and on the Marches throughout the summer, but 
nothing in the shape of a general rising took place 
till the luckless Grey, armed perhaps with the fresh 
powers he had sought for, singled out Glyndwr 
again as the object of his vengeance. Glyndwr had 
shown no signs as yet of giving trouble. His name 
i»not mentioned in the correspondence of this sum- 
mer, although he was the leading and most influen- 
tial Welshman upon the northern Marches. He or 
his people may have given Grey some annoyance, or 
been individually troublesome along the boundaries 
of the property of which he had robbed them. 
But the Lord Marcher in all likelihood was merely 
following up his old grudge in singling out Owen for 
his first operations, though it is possible that, having 
regard to the latter's great influence and the seeth- 
ing state of Wales, he thought it poHtic to remove a 
man who, smarting under a sense of injustice, might 
recommend himself for every reason as a capable 
leader to his countrymen. One would have sup- 
posed that the " strengest thief in Wales " would 
have claimed Grey's first attention, but Griffith ap 



I20 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

Dafydd, who dates his letter from " Brunkiffe,"* a 
name that baffles identification, was very Hkely out 
of ordinary reach. However that may be, the Lord 
of Ruthin, collecting his forces and joining them to 
those of his brother Marcher, Earl Talbot of Chirk, 
moved so swiftly and unexpectedly upon Owen that 
he had only just time to escape from his house and 
seek safety in the neighbouring woodlands before it 
was surrounded by his enemies. Whether this not- 
able incident, so fraught with weighty consequences, 
took place upon the Dee or the Cynllaeth — at Glyn- 
dyfrdwy, that is to say, or at Sycherth — is uncertain ; 
conjecture certainly favours the latter supposition, 
since Sycherth was beyond a doubt the most im- 
portant of Owen's mansions, as well as his favourite 
residence. Nearly all historians have hopelessly 
confounded these two places, which are seven or 
eight miles apart as the crow flies and cut off from 
each other by the intervening masses of the Berwyn 
Mountains. Seeing, however, that Pennant, the 
Welshman of topographical and archeological re- 
nown, falls into this curious mistake and never pene- 
trated to the real Sycherth or seemed aware of its 
existence, it is not surprising that most English and 
even Welsh writers have followed suit. 

It is of no importance to our story which of the 
two manors was the scene of Owen's escape and his 
enemy's disappointment, but the attack upon him 
filled the Welshman's cup of bitterness to the brim. 
It was the last straw upon a load of foolish and 
wanton insult ; and of a truth it was an evil day for 
* Possibly Brynkir near Criccieth. 









^^^^^^^^k^^^^^^ 




1 




if r^.„ H 



Copyright J. Bartlett. 

AN OLD STREET, SHREWSBURY. 



1401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 121 

Grey of Ruthin, and for his master, Henry, that saw 
this Hon hunted from his lair ; and an evil day per- 
haps for Wales, for, though it gave her the hero she 
most cherishes, it gave her at the same time a 
decade of utter misery and clouded the whole of 
the fifteenth century with its disastrous effects. 

Henry was very anxious to conciliate the Welsh. 
Sore and angry as they were at the deposition of 
their favourite Richard, the desultory lawlessness 
which smouldered on throughout the summer would 
to a certainty have died out, or remained utterly im- 
potent for serious mischief, before the conciliatory 
mood of the King, had no leader for the Welsh 
been found during his absence in the north. 
Henry had beyond question abetted his council in 
their contemptuous treatment of his old esquire's 
suit against Grey. But he may not unnaturally 
have had some personal grievance himself against 
Owen as a sympathiser with Richard ; a soreness, 
moreover, which must have been still further ag- 
gravated if the tradition of his taking service under 
the late King be a true one. Of the attachment 
of the Welsh to Richard, and their resentment at 
Henry's usurpation, we get an interesting glimpse 
from an independent source in the manuscript of 
M. Creton, a French knight who fought with Rich- 
ard in Ireland and remained for some time after 
his depositition at the English Court. He was pre- 
sent at the coronation of young Prince Henry as 
Prince of Wales, which took place early in this 
year. " Then arose Duke Henry," he says, " the 
King's eldest son, who humbly knelt before him, 



122 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

and he made him Prince of Wales and gave him the 
land. But I think he must conquer it if he will have 
it, for in my opinion the Welsh would on no account 
allow him to be their lord, for the sorrow, evil, and 
disgrace which the English together with his father 
had brought on King Richard." 

The Welsh had now found a leader indeed and a 
chief after their own heart. Owen was forty-one, 
handsome, brave, and, as events were soon to prove, 
as able as he was courageous. Above all, the blood 
of Powys and of Llewelyn ab lorwerth flowed in his 
veins. He was just the man, not only to lead them 
but to arouse the enthusiasm and stir up the long- 
crushed patriotism of an emotional and martial race. 
He seems to have stept at once to the front, and to 
have been hailed with acclamation by all the restless 
spirits that had been making the lives of the Lord 
Marchers a burden to them throughout the sum- 
mer, and a host of others who had hitherto had no 
thought of a serious appeal to arms. His standard, 
the ancient red dragon of Wales upon a white 
ground, was raised either at, or in the neighbour- 
hood of, his second estate of Glyndyfrdwy, possibly 
at Corwen, where many valleys that were populous 
even then draw together, and where the ancient 
British camp of Caer Drewyn, lifted many hundred 
feet above the Dee, suggests a rare post both for 
outlook, rendezvous, and defence. Hither flocked 
the hardy mountaineers with their bows and spears, 
not " ragged barefoots," as English historians, on 
the strength of a single word, nudepedibus, used 
by an Englishman in London, have called them in 



1401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 123 

careless and offhand fashion, but men in great part 
well armed, as became a people accustomed to war 
both at home and abroad, and well clad, as became 
a peasantry who were as yet prosperous and had 
never known domestic slavery. From the vales of 
Edeyrnion and Llangollen ; from the wild uplands, 
too, of Yale and Bryn Eglwys ; from the fertile banks 
of the Ceiriog and the sources of the Clwyd ; and 
from the farther shores of Bala Lake, where beneath 
the shadow of the Arans and Arenig fawr popula- 
tion clustered thick even in those distant days, came 
pouring forth the tough and warlike sons of Wales. 
In the van of all came the bards, carrying not only 
their harps but the bent bow, symbol of war. It 
was to them, indeed, that Glyndwr owed in great 
measure the swift and universal recognition that 
made him at once the man of the hour. Of all 
classes of Welshmen the bardic orders were the 
most passionately patriotic. For an hundred years 
their calling had been a proscribed one. Prior to 
Edward the First's conquest a regular tax, the 
" Cwmwrth," had been laid upon the people for 
their support. Since then they had slunk about, 
if not, as is sometimes said, in terror of their lives, 
yet dependent always for their support on private 
charity and doles. 

But no laws could have repressed song in Wales, 
and indeed this period seems a singularly prolific 
one both in poets and minstrels. They persuaded 
themselves that their deliverance from the Saxon 
grip was at hand, and saw in the valiant figure of 
Owain of Glyndyfrdwy the fulfilment of the ancient 



1 24 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

prophecies that a Welsh prince should once again 
wear the crown of Britain. Glyndwr well knew 
that the sympathy of the bards would prove to him 
a tower of strength, and he met them more than 
half way. If he was not superstitious himself he 
understood how to play upon the superstition and 
romantic nature of his countrymen. The old pro- 
phecies were ransacked, portents were rife in sea 
and sky. The most ordinary occurrences of nature 
were full of significant meaning for Owen's follow- 
ers and for all Welshmen at that moment, whether 
they followed him or not ; and in the month of 
August Owen declared himself, and by an already 
formidable body of followers was declared, " Prince 
of Wales." His friend and laureate, lolo Goch, was 
by his side and ready for the great occasion. 

" Cambria's princely Eagle, hail, 
Of Gryffydd Vychan's noble blood ; 
Thy high renown shall never fail, 
Owain Glyndwr great and good, 
Lord of Dwrdwy's fertile Vale, 
Warlike high born Owain, hail ! " 

Glyndwr would hardly have been human if he 
had not made his first move upon his relentless en- 
emy, Lord Grey of Ruthin. There is no evidence 
whether the latter was himself at home or not, but 
Owen fell upon the little town on a Fair day and 
made a clean sweep of the stock and valuables 
therein collected. Thence he passed eastwards, har- 
rying and burning the property of English settlers 



1401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 125 

or English sympathisers. Crossing the English 
border and spreading panic everywhere, he invaded 
western Shropshire, capturing castles and burning 
houses and threatening even Shrewsbury. 

The King, who had effected nothing in the North, 
was pulled up sharply by the grave news from Wales 
and prepared to hasten southwards. By September 
3rd he had retraced his steps as far as Durham, and 
passing through Pontefract, Doncaster, and Leicester 
arrived at Northampton about the 14th of the 
same month. Here fuller details reached him, and 
he deemed it necessary to postpone the Parliament 
which he had proposed to hold at Westminster in 
September, till the beginning of the following year, 
1401. From Northampton Henry issued summons 
to the sheriffs of the midland and border counties 
that they were to join him instantly with their 
levies, and that he was proceeding without delay to 
quell the insurrection that had broken out in North 
Wales. He wrote also to the people of Shrewsbury, 
warning them to be prepared against all attacks, and 
to provide against the treachery of any Welshmen 
that might be residing within the town. Then, mov- 
ing rapidly forward and taking his son, the young 
Prince Henry, with him, he reached Shrewsbury 
about the 24th of the month. 

Henry's crown had hitherto been a thorny one 
and he had derived but little satisfaction from it. 
The previous winter had witnessed the desperate 
plot from which he only saved himself by his rapid 
ride to London from Windsor, and the subsequent 
capture and execution of the Earls of Salisbury, 'y/ 



126 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

Kent, and Huntington, who had been the ringlead- 
ers. From his unsteady throne he saw both France 
and Scotland awaiting only an opportune moment 
to strike him. The whole spring had been passed 
in diplomatic endeavours to keep them quiet till he 
was sure of his own subjects. Isabella, the daughter 
of the King of France and child-widow of the late 
King Richard, had brought with her a considerable 
dower, and the hope of getting a part of this back, 
together with the young Queen herself, had kept 
the French quiet. But Scotland, that ill-governed 
and turbulent country, had been chafing under ten 
years of peace ; and its people, or rather the restless 
barons who governed them, were getting hungry for 
the plunder of their richer neighbours in the South, 
and, refusing all terms, were already crossing the 
border. Under ordinary circumstances an English 
king might have left such matters in the hands of 
his northern nobles. But it seemed desirable to 
Henry that he should, on the first occasion, show 
both to the Scotch and his own people of what 
mettle he was made. He was also angered at the 
lack of decent excuse for their aggressions. So 
he hurried northward, as we have seen, and having 
hurled the invaders back over the border as far as 
Edinburgh, he had for lack of food just returned 
to Newcastle when the bad news from Wales arrived. 
He was now at Shrewsbury, within striking distance, 
as it seemed, of the Welsh rebels and their arch- 
leader, his old esquire, Glyndwr. Neither Henry 
nor his soldiers knew anything of Welsh campaign- 
ing or of Welsh tactics, for five generations had 



1401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 127 

passed away since Englishmen had marched and 
fought in that formidable country and against their 
ancient and agile foes. Henry the Fourth, so far 
as we can judge, regarded the task before him with 
a light heart. At any rate he wasted some little 
time at Shrewsbury, making an example of the first 
Welshman of importance and mischievous tendencies 
that fell into his hands. This was one Grenowe ap 
Tudor, whose quarters, after he had been executed 
with much ceremony, were sent to ornament the 
gates of Bristol, Hereford, Ludlow, and Chester, re- 
spectively. The King then moved into Wales with 
all his forces, thinking, no doubt, to crush Glyndwr 
and his irregular levies in a short time and without 
much difficulty. This was the first of his many 
luckless campaigns in pursuit of his indomitable and 
wily foe, and perhaps it was the least disastrous. 
For though he effected nothing against the Welsh 
troops and did not even get a sight of them, he at 
least got out of the country without feeling the 
prick of their spears, which is more than can be 
said of almost any of his later ventures. His inva- 
sion of Wales, in fact, upon this occasion was a pro- 
menade and is described as such in contemporary 
records. He reached Anglesey without incident, 
and there for the sake of example drove out the 
Minorite friars from the Abbey of Llanfaes near 
Beaumaris, on the plea that they were friends of 
Owen. The plea seems to have been a sound one, 
for the Franciscans were without doubt the one 
order of the clergy that favoured Welsh independ- 
ence. But Henry, not content with this, plundered 



128 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

their abbey, an inexcusable act, and one for which 
in after years some restitution appears to have been 
made. Bad weather and lack of supplies, as on all 
after occasions, proved the King's worst enemies. 
Glyndwr and his people lay snug within the Snow- 
don mountains, and by October 17th, Henry, having 
set free at Shrewsbury a few prisoners he brought 
with him, was back at Worcester. Here he de- 
clared the estates of Owen to be confiscated and be- 
stowed them on his own half-brother, Beaufort, Earl 
of Somerset. He little thought at that time how 
many years would elapse before an English noble- 
man could venture to take actual possession of 
Sycherth or Glyndyfrdwy. 

Upon November 20th a general pardon was 
offered to all Welsh rebels who would come in and 
report themselves at Shrewsbury or Chester, the now 
notorious Owen always excepted, and on this occa- 
sion Griffith Hanmer, his brother-in-law, and one of 
the famous Norman-Welsh family of Pulestone had 
the honour of being fellow-outlaws with their chief. 
Their lands also were confiscated and bestowed on 
two of the King's friends. It is significant, however, 
of the anxiety regarding the future which Glyndwr's 
movement had inspired, that the grantee of the 
Hanmer estates, which all lay in Flint, was very glad 
to come to terms with a member of the family and 
take a trifling annuity instead of the doubtful privi- 
lege of residence and rent collecting. The castle of 
Carnarvon was strongly garrisoned. Henry, Prince 
of Wales, then only in his fourteenth year, was left 
at Chester with a suitable council and full powers of 



1401] Glyndwr afid Lord Grey -129 

exercising clemency toward all Welshmen lately in 
arms, other than the three notable exceptions already 
mentioned, who should petition for it. Few, how- 
ever, if any, seem to have taken the trouble to do 
even thus much. And in the meantime the King, 
still holding the Welsh rebellion as of no great 
moment, spent the winter in London entertaining the 
Greek Emperor and haggling with the King of France 
about the return of the money paid to Richard as 
the dower of his child-queen, Isabella who was still 
detained in London as in some sort a hostage. 

Parliament sat early in 1401 and was by no means 
as confident as Henry seemed to be regarding the 
state of Wales, a subject which formed the chief 
burden of their debate. Even here, perhaps, the 
gravity of the Welsh movement was not entirely 
realised ; the authorities were angry but scarcely 
alarmed ; no one remembered the old Welsh wars or 
the traditional defensive tactics of the Welsh, and 
the fact of Henry having swept through the Princi- 
pality unopposed gave rise to misconceptions. There 
was no question, however, about their hostility to- 
wards Wales, and in the early spring of this year the 
following ordinances for the future government of 
the Principality were published. 

(i) All lords of castles in Wales were to have them 
properly secured against assault on pain of forfeiture. 

(2) No Welshman in future was to be a Justice, 
Chamberlain, Chancellor, Seneschal, Receiver, Chief 
Forester, Sheriff, Escheator, Constable of a castle, or 
Keeper of rolls or records. All these offices were to be 
held by Englishmen, who were to reside at their posts. 



130 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

(3) The people of a district were to be held re- 
sponsible for all breaches of the peace in their 
neighbourhood and were to be answerable in their 
own persons for all felons, robbers, and trespassers 
found therein. 

(4) All felons and evildoers were to be immedi- 
ately handed over to justice and might not be 
sheltered on any pretext by any lord in any castle. 

(5) The Welsh people were to be taxed and 
charged with the expense of repairing and maintain- 
ing walls, gates, and castles in North Wales when 
wilfully destroyed, and for refurnishing them and 
keeping them in order, at the discretion of the owner, 
for a term not exceeding three years, except under 
special orders from the King. 

(6) No meetings of Welsh were to be held with- 
out the permission of the chief officers of the lord- 
ship, who were to be held responsible for any damage 
or riot that ensued. 

The gifts called " Cwmwrth," too, exacted by collec- 
tion for the maintenance of the bards or minstrels, 
were strictly interdicted. Adam of Usk, one of the 
few lay chroniclers of this period, was himself present 
at the Parliament of 1401 and heard " many harsh 
things " to be put in force against the Welsh : among 
others, " that they should not marry with English, nor 
get them wealth, nor dwell in England." Also that 
the men of the Marches " might use reprisals against 
Welshmen who were their debtors or who had in- 
jured them," a truce for a week being first granted to 
give them the opportunity of making amends. 

It was much easier, however, to issue commands 



1401] Glyndwr and Lord Grey 1 3 1 

and instructions than to carry them out. The King 
seems to have felt this, and leant strongly towards a 
greater show of clemency. But there was sufficient 
panic in parts of England to override the royal 
scruples or common sense, and so far as intentions 
went the Welsh were to be shown little mercy. 

Owen all this time had been lying quietly in the 
valley of the upper Dee, preparing for still further 
endeavours. The short days and the long nights of 
winter saw the constant passing to and fro of in- 
numerable sympathisers through the valleys and 
over the hills of both North and South Wales, and a 
hundred harps, that had long been faint or silent, 
were sounding high to the glories of the unforgotten 
heroes of Old Wales. Mere hatred of Henry and 
tenderness for Richard's memory were giving place 
to ancient dreams of Cambrian independence and a 
fresh burst of hatred for the Saxon yoke. Owen, 
too strong now to fear anything from isolated efforts 
of Lord Marchers, seems to have held high festival 
at Glyndyfrdwy during the winter, and with the as- 
sumption of princely rank to have kept up some- 
thing of the nature of princely state. With the ex- 
ception of Grey to the north and the lords of Chirk 
upon the east, it is probable that nearly everyone 
around him was by now either his friend or in 
wholesome dread of his displeasure. 

Shropshire was panic-stricken for the time. Hot- 
spur was busy at Denbigh, and Glyndwr, among his 
native hills, had it, no doubt, very much his own way 
during the winter months, and made full use of them 
to push forward his interests. His property, it will 



132 Owen Glyndwr [1400- 

be remembered, had been confiscated. But so far 
from anyone venturing to take possession of Glyndy- 
frdwy, its halls, we are told, at this time rang with 
revelry and song, while Owen, in the intervals of 
laying his plans and organising his campaign for the 
ensuing summer, received the homage of the bards 
who flocked from every part of the principality to 
throw their potent influence into the scale. How- 
ever much Glyndwr's vanity and ambition may have 
been stirred by the enthusiasm which surged around 
him, and the somewhat premature exultation that 
with wild rhapsody hailed him as the restorer of 
Welsh independence, he never for a moment lost 
sight of the stern issues he had to face, or allowed 
himself to be flattered into overconfidence. Cour- 
age and coolness, perseverance and sagacity, were 
his leading attributes. He well knew that the en- 
thusiasm of the bards was of vital consequence to the 
first success of his undertaking. It is of little mo- 
ment whether he shared the superstitions of those 
who sang of the glorious destiny for which fate had 
marked him or of those who listened to the singing. 
It is not likely that a man who showed himself so 
able and so cool a leader would fail to take full ad- 
vantage of forces which at this early stage were so 
supremely valuable. 

He knew his countrymen and he knew the world, 
and when Wales was quivering with excitement be- 
neath the interpretation of ancient prophecies bruit- 
ed hither and thither and enlarged upon by poetic 
and patriotic fancy, Glyndwr was certainly not the 
man to damp their ardour by any display of criticism. 



1401] Gtyndwr and Lord Grey 133 

Already the great news from Wales had thrilled 
the heart of many a Welshman poring over his 
books at the university, or following the plough-tail 
over English fallows. They heard of friends and 
relatives selling their stock to buy arms and harness, 
and in numbers that yet more increased as the year 
advanced, began to steal home again, all filled with 
a rekindled glow of patriotism that a hundred years 
of union and, in their cases, long mingling with the 
Saxon had not quenched. Oxford, particularly, sent 
many recruits to Owen, and this is not surprising, 
seeing how combative was the Oxford student of 
that time and how clannish his proclivities. Adam 
of Usk, who has told us a good deal about Glyn- 
dwr's insurrection, was himself an undergraduate 
some dozen years before it broke out, and has given 
us a brief and vivid picture of the ferocious fights 
upon more or less racial lines, in which the Welsh 
chronicler not only figured prominently himself, but 
was an actual leader of his countrymen; "was in- 
dicted," he tells us, " for felonious riot and narrowly 
escaped conviction, being tried by a jury empanelled 
before a King's Judge. After this I feared the 
King hitherto unknown to me and put hooks in my 
jaws." These particular riots were so formidable 
that the scholars for the most part, after several had 
been slain, departed to their respective countries. 

In the very next year, however, " Thomas 
Speke, Chaplain, with a multitude of other male- 
factors, appointing captains among them, rose up 
against the peace of the King and sought after all 
the Welshmen abiding and studying in Oxford, 



134 Owen Glyndwr [1400-1401] 

shooting arrows after them in divers streets and lanes 
as they went, crying out, * War ! war! war! Sle Sle 
Sle the Welsh doggys and her whelpys ; ho so 
looketh out of his house he shall in good sooth be 
dead,' and certain persons they slew and others they 
grievously wounded, and some of the Welshmen, 
who bowed their knees to abjure the town," they 
led to the gates with certain indignities not to be 
repeated to ears polite. We may also read the names 
of the different halls which were broken into, and of 
Welsh scholars who were robbed of their books and 
chattels, including in some instances their harps. 

It is not altogether surprising, therefore, that 
Welsh Oxonians should have hailed the opportunity 
of Owen's rising to pay off old scores. We have the 
names of some of those who joined him in an orig- 
inal paper, in the Rolls of Parliament, which fully 
corroborates the notice of this event ; Howel Kethin 
(Gethin) " bachelor of law, duelling in Myghell Hall, 
Oxenford," was one of them ; " Maister Morres Stove, 
of the College of Excestre," was another, while 
David Brith, John Lloid, and several others are men- 
tioned by name. One David Leget seems to have 
been regarded as such an addition that Owen him- 
self sent a special summons that he " schuld com till 
hym and be his man." So things in Wales went 
from bad to worse ; Glyndwr's forces gaining rapidly 
in strength and numbers, and actively preparing in 
various quarters for the operations that marked the 
open season of 1401. 



CHAPTER IV 

OWEN AND THE PERCYS 
14OI 

NORTH WALES, as already mentioned, was 
being now administered by the young Prince 
Henry, with the help of a council whose 
headquarters were at Chester. Under their orders, 
and their most active agent at this time, was Henry 
Percy, the famous Hotspur, eldest son of the Earl of 
Northumberland. He was Justice of North Wales 
and Constable of the castles of Chester, Flint, Con- 
way, Denbigh, and Carnarvon, and had recently 
been granted the whole island of Anglesey. Hot- 
spur, for obvious reasons, made his headquarters at 
the high-perched and conveniently situated fortress 
of Denbigh, which Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, had built 
at the Edwardian conquest. Its purpose was to 
overawe the lower portion of the Vale of Clwyd, 
which had fallen to Lacy's share at the great division 
of plunder that signalised the downfall of the last of 
the Welsh native Princes. The lordship of Den- 
bigh, it may be remarked parenthetically, since the 
fact becomes one of some significance later on, 

135 



136 Owen Glyndwr [1401 

belonged at this time to the Mortimers, into which 
famous family Henry Percy had married. The lat- 
ter, to whose house the King was under such great 
obligations, was the leading exponent of his master's 
policy in Wales, both in matters of peace and war, 
and had been sufficiently loaded with favours to at 
least equalise the balance of mutual indebtedness 
between the houses of Northumberland and Lan- 
caster. 

Shakespeare's fancy and dramatic instinct has 
played sad havoc in most people's minds with the 
mutual attitude of some of the leading figures of 
this stormy period. It has been sufficiently dis- 
proved by his biographers, if not, indeed, by the 
facts of general history, that Henry of Monmouth 
was no more the dissipated, light-headed trifler and 
heartless brawler than was Glyndwr the half-barba- 
rous and wholly boastful personage that Shake- 
speare has placed upon his stage. The King, it will 
be remembered, is depicted, in the play that bears 
his name, as bewailing with embittered eloquence 
the contrast between the characters of Hotspur and 
his own son, and making vain laments that the in- 
fants had not been changed while they lay side by 
side in their cradles. It is something of a shock to 
recall the fact that Henry Percy was a little older 
than the distraught father himself, and a contempo- 
rary, not of the Prince, but of the King, who was 
now about thirty-five, and many years younger than 
Glyndwr. 

Prince Henry, even now, though not yet fourteen, 
seems to have had a mind of his own. He had, in 



1401] Owen and the Percys 137 

truth, to face early the stern facts and hard reahties 
of a hfe such as would have sobered and matured a 
less naturally precocious and intelligent nature than 
his. His youth was not spent in frivolity and de- 
bauchery in London, but upon the Welsh border, 
for the most part, amid the clash of arms or the 
more trying strain of political responsibility, aggra- 
vated by constant want of funds. One might almost 
say that Henry of Monmouth's whole early man- 
hood was devoted to a fierce and ceaseless struggle 
with Glyndwr for that allegiance of the Welsh people 
to which both laid claim. In later years, as we shall 
see, it was the tenacity and soldier-like qualities of 
the Prince that succeeded where veteran warriors 
had failed, and that ultimately broke the back of 
Glyndwr's long and fierce resistance. The King, far 
from deploring the conduct or character of his valiant 
son, always treated him with the utmost confidence, 
and invariably speaks of him in his correspondence 
with unreserved affection and pride. He was of 
" spare make," say the chroniclers who knew him, 
" tall and well proportioned, exceeding the stature of 
men, beautiful of visage, and small of bone." He 
was of " marvellous strength, pliant and passing 
swift of limb ; and so trained to feats of agility by 
discipline and exercise, that with one or two of his 
lords he could on foot readily give chase to a deer 
without hounds, bow, or sling, and catch the fleetest 
of the herd." 

Either from a feeling that Hotspur was too strong, 
or that popular fervour had perhaps been sufficiently 
aroused to the north of the Dovey, Glyndwr now 



138 Owen Glyndwr [hoi 

turned his attention to the southern and midland 
districts of the country. But before following him 
there I must say something of the incident which 
was of chief importance at the opening of this year's 
operations. 

Conway will probably be more familiar to the gen- 
eral reader than any other scene of conflict we shall 
visit in this volume, from the fact of its being so 
notable a landmark on the highway between England 
and Ireland. The massive towers and walls of the 
great castle which Edward the First's architect, Henry 
de Elfreton, raised here at the conquest of Wales, still 
throw their shadows on the broad tidal river that 
laps their feet. The little town which lies beneath 
its ramparts and against the shore is still bound fast 
within a girdle of high, embattled walls, strengthened 
at measured intervals by nearly thirty towers, and 
presenting a complete picture of medieval times such 
as in all Britain is unapproached, while immediately 
above it, if anything were needed to give further 
distinction to a scene in itself so eloquent of a 
storied past, rise to heaven the northern bulwarks of 
the Snowdon range. Here, in the early spring of 
this year, within the castle, lay a royal garrison 
closely beset by the two brothers, William and Rhys 
ap Tudor, of the ever famous stock of Penmynydd 
in Anglesey. They had both been excluded from 
the King's pardon, together with Glyndwr, among 
whose lieutenants they were to prove themselves at 
this period the most formidable to the English power. 

Conway Castle, as may readily be believed by 
those familiar with it, was practically impregnable. 



1401] Owen and the Percys 139 

so long as a score or two of armed men with suffi- 
cient to sustain life and strength remained inside it. 
The Tudors, however, achieved by stealth what the 
force at their command could not at that time have 
accomplished by other means. For while the garri- 
son were at church, a partisan of the Glyndwr faction 
was introduced into the castle in the disguise of a 
carpenter, and after killing the warders he admitted 
William ap Tudor and some forty men. They found 
a fair stock of provisions within the castle, though, 
as will be seen, it proved in the end insufficient. 
The main body of the besiegers retired under Rhys 
ap Tudor to the hills overlooking the town to await 
developments. They were not long left in suspense, 
for the news of the seizure of the castle roused Hot- 
spur to activity, and he hastened to the spot with all 
the men that he could collect. Conway being one 
of Edward's fortified and chartered English towns, 
the inhabitants were presumably loyal to the King. 
But Hotspur brought five hundred archers and men- 
at-arms and great engines, including almost certainly 
some of the primitive cannon of the period, to bear 
on the castle. William ap Tudor and his forty men 
laughed at their efforts till Hotspur, despairing of 
success by arms, went on to Carnarvon, leaving his 
whole force behind, to try the effect of starvation on 
the garrison. 

At Carnarvon Henry Percy held his sessions as 
Justice of North Wales, openly proclaiming a pardon 
in the name of his master the Prince to all who 
would come in and give up their arms. From here, 
too, he sent word in a letter, still extant, that the 



140 Owen Glyndwr l1401 

commons of Carnarvon and Merioneth had come be- 
fore him, thanking the King and Prince for their 
clemency and offering to pay the same dues as they 
had paid King Richard. He also declared that the 
northern districts, with the exception of the forces 
at Conway, were rapidly coming back to their alleg- 
iance. How sanguine and premature Hotspur was 
in this declaration will soon be clear enough. 

In the meantime much damage had been done to 
Conway town by both besiegers and besieged. The 
latter seem to have overestimated the resources they 
found within the castle, for by the end of April they 
were making overtures for terms. William ap Tudor 
offered on behalf of his followers to surrender the 
place if a full and unconditional pardon should be 
granted to all inside. Hotspur was inclined to accept 
this proposal, but the council at Chester and the King 
himself, getting word of his intention, objected, and 
with justice, to such leniency. So the negotiations 
drag on. The King in a letter to his son remarks 
that, as the castle fell by the carelessness of Henry 
Percy's people, that same " dear and faithful cousin " 
ought to see that it was retaken without concessions 
to those holding it, and, moreover, pay all the ex- 
penses out of his own pocket. In any case he urges 
that, if he himself is to pay the wages and mainten- 
ance of the besieging force, and supply their impos- 
ing siege train, he would like to see something more 
substantial for the outlay than a full and free pardon 
to the rebels who had caused it. It was the begin- 
ning of July before an agreement was finally arrived 
at, to the effect that if nine of the garrison, not 



1401] Owen and the Percys 141 

specified, were handed over to justice, the rest 
should be granted both their lives and a free pardon. 
The selection of the nine inside the castle was made 
on a strange method, if method it can be called. 
For the leaders, having made an arbitrary and privy- 
choice of the victims, had them seized and bound 
suddenly in the night. They were then handed over 
to Percy's troops, who slaughtered them after the 
usual brutal fashion of the time. 

A second letter of Henry Percy's to the council 
demonstrates conclusively how seriously he had been 
at fault in his previous estimate. This time he 
writes from Denbigh under date of May 17th, press- 
ing for the payment of arrears in view of the de- 
sperate state of North Wales, and further declaring 
that if he did not receive some money shortly he 
must resign his position to others and leave the 
country by the end of the month. But Hotspur 
rose superior to his threats ; for at the end of May, 
at his own risk and expense, he made an expedition 
against a force of Glyndwr's people that were in arms 
around Dolgelly. He was accompanied by the Earl 
of Arundel and Sir Hugh Browe, a gentleman of 
Cheshire. An action was fought of an indecisive 
nature at the foot of Cader Idris, after which Percy 
returned to Denbigh, Finding here no answer to 
his urgent appeal for support, he threw up all his 
Welsh appointments in disgust and left the country 
for the more congenial and familiar neighbourhood 
of the Scottish border. For he held ofitice here also, 
being joined with his father in the wardenship of 
the Eastern Marches of Scotland. 



142 Owen Glyndwr [1401 

Hotspur was even now, at this early stage and 
with some apparent cause, in no very good humour 
with the King. It is certain, too, that Glyndwr at 
this time had some special liking for the Percys, 
though they were his open enemies, and it is almost 
beyond question that they had a personal interview 
at some place and date unknown during the summer. 

Leaving North Wales in a seething and turbulent 
state, with local partisans heading bands of insurgents 
(if men who resist an usurper can be called insurgents) 
in various parts of the country, we must turn to 
Owen and the South. Crossing the Dovey, Glyndwr 
had sought the mountain range that divides Cardigan 
from what is now Radnorshire (then known as the 
district of Melenydd), and raised his standard upon 
the rounded summit of Plinlimmon. It was a fine 
position, lying midway between North and South 
Wales, within sight of the sea and at the same time 
within striking distance of the fertile districts of the 
Centre and the South. Behind him lay the populous 
seaboard strip of Ceredigion created at Edward's 
conquest into the county of Cardigan. Before him 
lay Radnor, and Carmarthen, and the fat lordships 
of Brycheiniog, to be welded later into the modern 
county of Brecon. Along the Cardiganshire coast 
in Owen's rear a string of castles frowned out upon 
the Irish Sea, held, since it was a royal county, by the 
constables of the King, who were sometimes of 
English, sometimes of Welsh, nationality. Inland, as 
far as the Herefordshire border, was a confused net- 
work of lordships, held for the most part direct from 
the King on feudal tenure by English or Anglo- 



1401] Owen and the Percys 143 

Welsh nobles, and each dominated by one or more 
grim castles of prodigious strength, against which the 
feeble engines and guns of those days hurled their 
missiles with small effect. Some of these were royal 
or quasi-royal property and looked to the Crown for 
their defence. The majority, however, had to be 
maintained and held by owners against the King's 
enemies, subject to confiscation in case of any de- 
ficiency in zeal or precaution. Ordinarily impreg- 
nable though the walls were, the garrisons, as we shall 
see, were mostly small, and they were incapable of 
making much impression upon the surrounding 
country when once it became openly hostile and 
armed. 

South Wales had as yet shown no great disposition 
to move. Some riots and bloodshed at Abergavenny 
had been almost the sum total of its patriotic activity. 
Now, however, that the Dragon Standard was actually 
floating on Plinlimmon and the already renowned 
Owen, with a band of chosen followers, was calling 
the South to arms, there was no lack of response. 
The bards had been busy preparing the way on the 
south as well as on the north of the Dovey. In the 
words of Pennant : 

" They animated the nation by recalling to mind the 
great exploits of their ancestors, their struggles for 
liberty, their successful contests with the Saxon and 
Norman race for upwards of eight centuries. They re- 
hearsed the cruelty of their antagonists, and did not 
forget the savage policy of the first Edward to their pro- 
scribed brethren. They brought before their country- 
men the remembrance of ancient prophecies. They 



144 Owen Glyndwr [1401 

showed the hero Glyndwr to be descended from the 
ancient race of our Princes, and pronounced that in him 
was to be expected the completion of our oracular Merlin, 
The band of minstrels now struck up. The harp, the 
* crwth,' and the pipe filled up the measure of enthu- 
siasm which the other had begun to inspire. They 
rushed to battle, fearless of the event, like their great 
ancestry, moved by the Druids' songs, and scorned death 
which conferred immortality in reward of their valour." 

Glyndwr novir fell with heavy hand upon this 
southern country, crossing the headwaters of the 
Severn and the Wye, and pressing hard upon the 
Marches of Carmarthen. The common people rose 
on every side and joined the forces that acted 
either under his leadership or in his name. Those 
who did not join him, as was certainly the case with 
a majority of the upper class at this early period, 
had to find refuge in the castles or to fly to safer 
regions, leaving their property at the mercy of the 
insurgents. But a battle was fought at the opening 
of this campaign on the summit of Mynydd Hydd- 
gant, a hill in the Plinlimmon group, that did more, 
perhaps, to rouse enthusiasm for Glyndwr than even 
the strains of the bards or his own desolating marches. 

The Flemings in Wales at that time were not con- 
fined to Western Pembroke, but had still strong 
colonies below Carmarthen, in the Glamorgan pro- 
montory of Gower, and some footing in South 
Cardiganshire. Whether they had actually felt the 
hand of Glyndwr upon their borders, or whether they 
deemed it better to take the initiative, they at any 
rate collected a force of some fifteen hundred men, 



1401] Owen and the Percys 145 

and marching northward to the Cardigan mountains, 
surprised the Welsh leader as he was encamped on 
the summit of Mynydd Hyddgant, with a body of 
less than five hundred men around him. The 
Flemish strategy was creditable, seeing that it was 
carried out by slow-witted and slow-footed lowlanders 
against nimble mountaineers and so astute a chieftain. 
Owen found himself surrounded by a force thrice the 
number of his own, and either death or capture 
seemed inevitable. As the latter meant the former, 
he was not long in choosing his course, and putting 
himself at the head of his warriors he attacked the 
Flemings with such fury that he and most of his 
band escaped, leaving two hundred of their enemies 
dead upon the mountain slope. This personal feat 
of arms was Avorth five thousand men to Owen. 
It was all that was wanted to fill the measure of his 
prestige and decide every wavering Welshman in his 
favour. 

For this whole summer Glyndwr was fighting and 
ravaging throughout South and Mid- Wales. The 
lands of the English as well as of those Welshmen 
who would not join him were ruthlessly harried. 
Stock was carried off, homesteads were burned, even 
castles here and there were taken, when ill-provis- 
ioned and undermanned. New Radnor under Sir 
John Grendor was stormed and the sixty defenders 
hung upon the ramparts by way of encouragement 
to others to yield. The noble abbey of Cwmhir 
too, whose ruins still slowly crumble in a remote 
Radnorshire valley, felt Glyndwr's pitiless hand, be- 
ing utterly destroyed. His animosity to the Church 



146 Owen Glyndwr [hoi 

was intelligible, though for his method of showing it 
nothing indeed can be said. The Welsh Church, 
though its personnel was largely native, was, with 
the exception of the Franciscan order, mostly hostile 
to Glyndwr and upon the side of the English Gov- 
ernment, Bards and priests, moreover, were irrecon- 
cilable enemies. The latter had in some sort 
usurped the position the former had once held, and 
now the patron and the hero of the bards, who were 
once more lifting up their heads, was not likely to be 
acceptable to the clergy. This, however, would be 
a poor excuse for an iconoclasm that would set a 
Welsh torch to noble foundations built and endowed 
for the most part with Welsh money. 

Glyndwr in the meantime swept down the Severn 
valley, burning on his way the small town of Mont- 
gomery, and coming only to a halt where the border 
borough of Welshpool lay nestling between the high 
hills through which the Severn rushes out into the 
fat plains of Shropshire. 

The great Red Castle of Powys, then called 
" Pole," overlooked in those days, as it does in 
these, the town it sheltered. The famous Shrop- 
shire family of Charlton were then, and for genera- 
tions afterwards, its lords and owners. From its 
walls Glyndwr and his forces were now driven back 
by Edward Charlton with his garrison and the levies 
of the neighbourhood, which remained throughout 
the war staunch to its lord and the King. The re- 
pulse of Owen, however, was not accomplished with- 
out much hard fighting and the destruction of all 
the suburbs of the town. 



1401] Owen and the Percys i\'j 

But these sallies from castles and walled towns 
could do little more than protect their inmates. 
Mid- and South Wales literally bristled with feudal 
castles containing garrisons of, for the most part, less 
than a hundred men. These scattered handfuls were 
unable to leave their posts and act in unison, and 
when the abandonment of North Wales by Hotspur 
gave further confidence to those who had risen, or 
would like to rise, for Glyndwr, the greater part of 
South Wales fell into line with the Centre and the 
North. From the border to the sea Owen was now, 
so far as the open country was concerned, irresistible. 
Nor was it only within the bounds of Wales that 
men who were unfriendly to Glyndwr had cause to 
tremble. The rapid progress of his arms had already 
spread terror along the border, and created some- 
thing like a panic even in England. The idea of a 
Welsh invasion spread to comparatively remote 
parts, and urgent letters carried by hard-riding mes- 
sengers went hurrying to the King from beleaguered 
Marchers and scared abbots, beseeching him to come 
in person to their rescue. 

All this happened in August. As early as the 
preceding June, when Conway was in Welsh hands, 
the King had meditated a second invasion in person, 
and had issued summonses to the sheriffs of fourteen 
counties to meet him at Worcester, but the ap- 
proaching surrender of Conway and the optimistic 
reports from Wales that met him as he came west 
turned him from his purpose. There was no optim- 
ism now ; all was panic and the King was really com- 
ing. The Prince of Wales in the meantime was 



148 Owen Gly7idwr [1401 

ordered forward with the levies of the four border 
counties, while the forces of twenty-two of the west- 
ern, southern, and midland shires were hurriedly col- 
lected by a proclamation sent out upon the i8th of 
September. 

One reads with constant and unabated surprise of 
the celerity with which these great levies gathered 
from all parts of the country to the appointed tryst, 
fully equipped and ready for a campaign. One's 
amazement, however, is sensibly modified as the 
narrative proceeds and discovers them after a week 
or two of marching in an enemy's country reduced 
to their last crust, upon the verge of disaster and 
starvation, and leaving in their retiring tracks as 
many victims as might have fallen in quite a sharp 
engagement. 

By the opening of October the King and Prince 
Henry had entered Wales with a large army. The 
proclamation of September the i8th, calling out the 
forces of England, had stated that the greater part 
of the able-bodied men of Wales had gone over to 
Owen. Now, however, as this great host pushed its 
way to Bangor, as had happened before, and would 
happen again, not a Welshman was to be seen. 
On every side were the sparse grain -fields long 
stripped of their produce, the barns empty, the 
abundant pastures bare of the small black cattle and 
mountain sheep with which in times of peace and 
safety they were so liberally sprinkled. On the 8th 
of October the army was at Bangor, on the 9th at 
Carnarvon, whose tremendous and impregnable fort- 
ress John Bolde defended for the King with about a 



1401] Owen a?td the Percys 149 

hundred men. Still seeing no sign of an enemy, 
they swept in aimless fashion round the western 
edges of the Snowdon mountains (for the route 
through them, which was even then a recognised 
one, would have been too dangerous), arriving in an 
incredibly short space of time in Cardiganshire, 
where the King called a halt at the great and his- 
toric abbey of Ystradfflur or Strata Florida. 

The weather for a wonder favoured the English, 
and we might be excused for giving our imagination 
play for a moment and painting in fancy the gor- 
geous sight that the chivalry of half England, unsoiled 
by time or tempests or war, with its glinting steel, 
its gay colours, its flaunting pennons, shining in the 
October sun, must have displayed as it wound in a 
long, thin train through those familiar and matchless 
scenes. The great Cistercian house of YstradfHur 
had shared with Conway in olden days the honour 
of both making and preserving the records of the 
Principality. Around the building was a cemetery 
shaded by forty wide-spreading and venerable yew 
trees. Beneath their shade lay the bones of eleven 
Welsh Princes of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries 
and perhaps those of the greatest Welsh poet of the 
age, Dafydd ab Gwilim. Henry cared for none of 
these things. He allowed the abbey to be gutted and 
plundered, not sparing even the sacred vessels. He 
turned the monks out on to the highway, under the 
plea that two or three of them had favoured Owen, 
and filled up the measure of desecration by stabling 
his horses at the high altar. 

Meanwhile, Owen and his nimble troops began to 



150 Owen Glyndwr [hoi 

show themselves in Cardiganshire, harrying the flanks 
and rear and outposts of the royal army, cutting off 
supplies, and causing much discomfort and consider- 
able loss, including the v/hole camp equipage of the 
Prince of Wales. 

Henry did his best to bring Owen to action, but 
the Welsh chieftain was much too wary to waste his 
strength on a doubtful achievement which hunger 
would of a certainty accomplish for him within a few 
days. An eminent gentleman of the country, one 
Llewelyn ab Griffith Vychan of Cayo, comes upon 
the scene at this point and at the expense of his 
head relieves the tedium of this brief and ineffect- 
ual campaign with a dramatic incident. His posi- 
tion, we are told, was so considerable that he 
consumed in his house no less than sixteen casks of 
wine a year ; but his patriotism rose superior to his 
rank and comforts. He offered to guide the royal 
troops to a spot where they might hope to capture 
Owen, but instead of doing this he deliberately mis- 
led them, to their great cost, and openly declared 
that he had two sons serving with Glyndwr, and that 
his own sympathies were with them and their heroic 
leader. He then bared his neck to the inevitable 
axe of the executioner, and proved himself thereby 
to be a hero, whose name, one is glad to think, has 
been rescued from oblivion. 

The King, having attended to the mangling and 
quartering of this gallant old patriot, crossed the 
Montgomery hills with his army and hurried down 
the Severn valley, carrying with him, according to 
Adam of Usk, a thousand Welsh children as 



1401] Owen and the Percys 151 

captives. Beyond this capture, he had achieved no- 
thing save some further harrying of a land already 
sufficiently harried, and the pillaging of an historic 
and loyal monastery. 

Arriving at Shrewsbury before the end of October 
he disbanded his army, leaving behind him a Wales 
rather encouraged in its rebellious ways than other- 
wise, Glyndwr's reputation in no whit diminished, and 
his own and his Marchers' castles as hardly pressed 
and in as sore a plight as when he set out, with so 
much pomp and circumstance, less than a month be- 
fore. It must have been merely to save appearances 
that he issued a pardon to the " Commons of Cardi- 
gan," with leave to buy back the lands that had been 
nominally confiscated. He was also good enough to 
say that on consideration he would allow them to 
retain their own language, which it seems he had 
tabooed ; this, too, at a time when the life of no Eng- 
lishman in Cardigan was safe a bowshot away from 
the Norman castles, when the Welsh of the country 
were practically masters of the situation and Glyn- 
dwr virtually their Prince. 

Still Henry meant well. Since he was their King, 
his manifest duty was to reconquer their country for 
the Crown, and this was practically the task that lay 
before him. But then again this is precisely what he 
did not seem for a long time yet to realise. He was 
a good soldier, while for his energy and bodily 
activity one loses oneself in admiration. But he per- 
sistently underrated the Welsh position and gave his 
mind and his energies to other dangers and other in- 
terests which were far less pressing. And when he 



152 Owen Glyndwr [1401 

did bend his whole mind to the subjection of Glyn- 
dwr, his efforts were ill-directed, and the conditions 
seemed to be of a kind with which he not only could 
not grapple but which his very soul abhorred. It 
remained, as will be seen, for the gallant son, whose 
frivolity is popularly supposed to have been the 
bane of his father's life, by diligence as well as val- 
our, to succeed where the other had ignominiously 
failed. 

Lord Rutland was now appointed to the thorny 
office of Governor of North Wales, while the Earl 
of Worcester, a Percy and uncle to Hotspur, was 
left to face Glyndwr in the southern portion of the 
Principality. The winter of 1401-2 was at hand, a 
season when Owen and his Welshmen could fight, 
but English armies most certainly could not cam- 
paign. The castles in the Southern Marches were 
put in fighting trim, revictualled and reinforced. 
The chief of those in the interior that Glyndwr had 
now to face were Lampeter, Cardigan and Builth, 
Llandovery and Carmarthen, while upon the border 
the massive and high-perched towers of Montgomery 
and Powys looked down over the still smoking vil- 
lages by the Severn's bank, and girded themselves to 
stem if need be any repetition of such disaster. 
Owen seemed to think that his presence in the 
North after so long an absence would be salutary ; so, 
passing into Carnarvonshire, he appeared before its 
stubborn capital. 

But John Bolde had been reinforced with men and 
money, and, joined by the burghers of the town, he 
beat ofl Glyndwr's attack and slew three hundred of 



1401] Owen and the Percys 153 

his men. This was early in November. All North 
Wales but the castles and the walled towns around 
them, where such existed, was still friendly to Owen. 
The chief castles away from the English border, 
Criccieth, Harlech, Carnarvon, Conway, Snowdon 
(Dolbadarn), Rhuddlan, and Beaumaris, complete the 
list of those in royal keeping and may be readily 
reckoned up, unlike those of South Wales, whose 
name was legion ; while Denbigh and Ruthin were 
the only Marcher strongholds, apart from those which 
were in immediate touch with Salop and Cheshire. 
Now it so happened that, before most of the events 
narrated in this chapter had taken place, before, in- 
deed, Hotspur had retired in such seeming petulance 
from North Wales during the preceding summer, 
he had contrived a meeting with Glyndwr. The 
scene of the interview is not known ; that it occurred, 
however, is not merely noted by the chroniclers, but 
Glyndwr's attitude in connection with it is referred 
to in the State papers. A council called in Novem- 
ber, while Owen was making his attempt on Car- 
narvon, has upon its minutes, " To know the king's 
will about treaty with Glyndwr to return to his 
allegiance seeing his good intentions relating there- 
to." In the interview with Percy, Owen is said to 
have declared that he was willing to submit, provided 
that his life should be spared and his property guar- 
anteed to him. Later in the year, as a well-known 
original letter of the period affirms, " Jankyn Tyby 
of the North Countre bringeth letteres owt of the 
North Countre to Owen as thei demed from Hen^ son 
Percy." 



^' 



154 Owen Glyndwr [hoi 

In answer Owen expressed his affection for the 
Earl of Northumberland and the confidence he felt 
in him. The King was then informed of the pro- 
ceedings, and with his consent a messenger was sent 
from Earl Percy to Mortimer, whose sister, as Hot- 
spur's wife, was his daughter-in-law. Through the 
medium of Mortimer, soon to become so closely 
allied to Glyndwr, the latter is reported to have de- 
clared his willingness for peace, protesting that he 
was not to blame for the havoc wrought in Wales, 
and that he had been deprived of his patrimony, 
meaning no doubt the northern slice of Glyndyfrdwy 
which Grey, after being defeated at law, had annexed 
by force, with connivance of the King's council. 
He added that he would readily meet the Earl of 
Northumberland on the English border, as was re- 
quired of him, but that he feared outside treachery 
to his person, as a man who had made such a host 
of enemies may well have done. He also declared 
that, if he came to Shropshire, the Commons would 
raise a clamour and say that he came to destroy all 
those who spoke English. That Hotspur had seen 
Glyndwr earlier in the summer is distinctly stated by 
Hardyng, who was Hotspur's own page. The fact 
that Percy did not take the opportunity to treach- 
erously seize the Welsh chieftain was afterwards 
made one of the grievances urged by the King when 
he had other really serious ones against his old 
comrade. It may well, however, be suspected that 
some of these mysterious overtures in which the 
Percys and Mortimer figured so prominently con- 
tained the germs of the alliance that followed 



1401] Owen and the Percys 155 

later between Glyndwr and the two great English 
houses. 

No such suspicions, however, were as yet in the 
air, and Glyndwr retired, with his captains and his 
bards, into winter quarters at Glyndyfrdwy. Here, 
through the short days and long nights, the sounds 
of song and revelry sounded in the ancient Welsh 
fashion above the tumbling breakers of the Dee. 
The very accessibility of the spot to the strong 
border castles showed the reality at this time of 
Owen's power. The great pile of Chirk was not a 
dozen miles off, Dinas Bran was within easy 
sight, and the Arundels, who held them both, were no 
less mighty than the Greys who lay amid the ashes 
of Ruthin across the ridges to the north. But the 
whole country towards England, to Wrexham upon 
the one hand and to Oswestry on the other, and even 
to Ellesmere and that detached fragment of Flint 
known then as " Maelor Saesnag," was in open or 
secret sympathy with what had now become a 
national movement. More men of note, too, and 
property were with Owen this winter. The rising in 
its origin had been markedly democratic. The 
labour agitations that during the century just com- 
pleted had stirred England, had not left Wales un- 
touched. There, too, the times had changed for the 
lower orders. The Norman heel pressed more 
heavily upon them than it did upon their native 
masters, who were often on friendly terms and con- 
nected by marriage with the conquerors' families, 
while the very fact that Norman feudal customs had 
grown so general made it harder for the poor. The 



156 Owen Glyndwr [1401 

Welsh gentry as a class had hitherto fought some- 
what shy of the Dragon Standard. Many, especially 
from South Wales, had fled to England. Now, how- 
ever, everyone outside the immediate shelter of the 
castles had to declare himself for Owen or the King. 
And at this moment there was not much choice, — for 
those, at any rate, who set any store by their safety. 

To make matters worse for Henry, the Scots had 
again declared war in November, and in December 
Glyndwr made a dash for the great stronghold of 
Harlech. This was only saved to the King, for the 
time being, by the timely despatch of four hun- 
dred archers and one hundred men-at-arms from the 
Prince of Wales's headquarters at Chester. Owen, 
however, achieved this winter what must have been, 
to himself at any rate, a more satisfactor)'- success than 
even the taking of Harlech, and this was the capture 
of his old enemy, Reginald, Lord Grey of Ruthin. 

It was on the last day of January, according to 
Adam of Usk, that Glyndwr crossed the wild hills 
dividing his own territory from that of Grey, and, 
dropping down into the Vale of Clwyd, appeared be- 
fore Ruthin. There are several versions of this 
notable encounter. All point to the fact that Owen 
exercised some strategy in drawing his enemyj with 
the comparatively small force at his command, out 
of his stronghold, and then fell on him with over- 
powering numbers, 

An old tale recounts that the Welsh leader drove 
a number of stakes into the ground in a wooded 
place and caused his men to hang their helmets 
on them to represent a small force, while the men 



1401] Owen and the Percys 157 

themselves lurked in ambush upon either side ; and 
that he caused the shoes of his horses to be re- 
versed to make Grey think that he had retreated. 
The fight took place, according to one tradition, close 
to Ruthin ; another declares that Brynsaithmarchog 
( " the hill of the seven knights " ), half way to Cor- 
wen, was the scene of it. But this is of little moment 
to other than local antiquaries. Grey's force was 
surrounded and cut to pieces ; that haughty baron 
himself was taken prisoner, and carried off at once, 
with a view to making so notable a captive secure 
against all attempt at rescue, to the Snowdon mount- 
ains. The tables were indeed turned on the greedy 
and tyrannical Lord Marcher who had been the prim- 
ary cause of all this trouble that had fallen upon 
Wales and England. Glyndwr would not have been 
human had he not then drained to the last drop the 
cup of a revenge so sweet, and Grey was immured in 
the castle of Dolbadarn, whose lonely tower, still 
standing between the Llanberis lakes and at the 
foot of Snowdon, is so familiar to the modern tour- 
ist. His treatment as a prisoner, amid the snows of 
those cold mountains, was not indulgent, if his 
friends in England are to be believed. But such a 
captive was too valuable to make experiments upon 
in the matter of torture or starvation. Owen re- 
garded him as worth something more than his weight 
in gold, and gold was of infinite value to his cause. 
So he proceeded to assess Grey's ransom at the for- 
midable sum of ten thousand marks, no easy amount 
for even the greater barons of that time to realise. 
The King was greatly distressed when he heard of 



158 Owen Glyndwr [1401 

his favourite's fate and pictured him as chained to 
the wall in some noisome dungeon in the heart of 
those dreary mountains, at the thought of which he 
shuddered. Rescue was impossible, for the very- 
frontiers of Wales defied him, while the heart of 
Snowdonia, the natural fortress of the Welsh nation, 
was at that time almost as far beyond the reach of 
his arm as Greenland ; moreover he had the Scots 
just now upon his hands. 

Grey's captivity lasted nearly a year. Greatly 
concerned in the matter though the King was, it was 
not till the following October that he appointed a 
commission to treat with Glyndwr for his favourite's 
ransom. This commission consisted of Sir William 
de Roos, Sir Richard de Grey, Sir William de Wil- 
loughby, Sir Wilham de Zouche, Sir Hugh Hals, 
and six other less distinguished people. Glyndwr 
agreed to release his prisoner in consideration of 
ten thousand marks, six thousand to be paid 
within a month, and hostages, in the person of 
his eldest son and others, to be delivered to him 
as guaranty for the remaining four thousand. 
The Bishop of London and others were then 
ordered to sell the manor of Hertleigh in Kent, and 
Grey was to be excused for six years from the bur- 
densome tax then laid on absentee Irish landowners 
amounting to one-third of their rentals. These pay- 
ments left him, we are told, a poor man for life. His 
Ruthin property had been destroyed by Glyndwr 
himself, and the latter's triumph was complete when 
the Lord Marcher had to make a humiliating agree- 
ment not to bear arms against him for the rest of 



1401] Owen and the Percys 159 

his life. Hardyng, the rhyming chronicler, does not 
omit this notable incident : 

" Scone after was the same Lord Grey in feelde 
Fightyng taken and holden prisoner, 
By Owayne, so that him in prison helde, 
Tyll his ransome was made and finance 
Ten thousand marlce, and fully payed were dear 
For whiche he was so poor than all his lyfe 
That no power he had to werr ne strife.'^ 

An unfounded, as well as quite improbable, tradi- 
tion has found its way into many accounts, which 
represents Owen as compelling Grey to marry one 
of his daughters. 

While these stirring events were taking place, 
Glyndwr's thoughts and his correspondence were 
busy travelling oversea. He was sending letters 
both to the King of Scotland and the native chief- 
tains of Ireland, soliciting their aid. At this time, 
too, a certain knight of Cardiganshire named David 
ap Tevan Goy, who for twenty years had been 
fighting against the Saracens, with various Eastern 
Christians, was sent on Owen's behalf by the King 
of France to the King of Scotland. He was cap- 
tured, however, by English sailors and imprisoned 
in the Tower of London. 

Glyndwr's own messengers were equally unfortun- 
ate, for letters he sent to Robert of Scotland and 
the Irish chieftains were seized in Ireland and their 
bearers beheaded. Adam of Usk has fortunately 
left us a copy of them. Glyndwr had as yet no 
chancellor or secretary at his side that we know of. 



i6o Owen Glyyidwr [hoi 

And, indeed, being a man of the world and a well- 
educated one, it may safely be assumed that he 
wrote these letters himself. We have so little from 
his own hand ; his personality is in some respects so 
vague and shadowy ; his deeds and their results com- 
prise such a vast deal more of the material from 
which the man himself has to be judged than is 
usually the case, that one feels disinclined to omit 
the smallest detail which brings him, as an indi- 
vidual, more distinctly to the mind. I shall there- 
fore insert the whole text of the captured letters. 
The first is to the King of Scotland, the second to 
the lords of Ireland. 

" Most high and Mighty and redoubted Lord and 
Cousin, I commend me to your most High and Royal 
Majesty, humbly as it beseemeth me with all honour and 
reverence. Most redoubted Lord and Sovereign Cousin, 
please it you and your most high Majesty to know that 
Brutus, your most noble ancestor and mine, which was 
the first crowned King who dwelt in this realm of Eng- 
land, which of old times was called Great Britain. The 
which Brutus begat three sons ; to wit, Albanact, Lo- 
crine, and Camber, from which same Albanact you are 
descended in direct line. And the issue of the same 
Camber reigned loyally down to Cadwalladar, who was 
the last crowned King of the people, and from whom I, 
your simple Cousin am descended in direct line ; and 
after whose decease, I and my ancestors and all my said 
people have been and still are, under the tyranny and 
bondage of mine and your mortal enemies, the Saxons ; 
whereof you most redoubted Lord and very Sovereign 
Cousin, have good knowledge. And from this tyranny 



1401] Owen and the Percys i6i 

and bondage the prophecy saith that I shall be delivered 
by the help and succour of your Royal Majesty. But 
most redoubted Lord and Sovereign Cousin, I make a 
grievous plaint to your Royal Majesty, and most Sover- 
eign Cousinship, that it faileth me much in soldiers, 
therefore most redoubted Lord and very Sovereign 
Cousin, I humbly beseech you kneeling upon my knees, 
that it may please your Royal Majesty to send me a cer- 
tain number of soldiers, who may aid me and withstand, 
with God's help, mine and your enemies, having regard 
most redoubted Lord and very Sovereign Cousin to the 
chastisement of this mischief and of all the many past 
mischiefs which I and my ancestors of Wales have suf- 
fered at the hands of mine and your mortal enemies. 
And be it understood, most redoubted Lord and very 
Sovereign Cousin that I shall not fail all the days of my 
life to be bounden to do your service and to repay you. 
And in that I cannot send unto you all my business in 
writing, I send these present bearers fully informed in all 
things, to whom be pleased to give faith and belief in 
what they shall say to you by word of mouth. From 
my Court, most redoubted Lord and very Sovereign 
Cousin, may the Almighty Lord have you in his keeping." 

The letter to the Irish lords runs thus : 

" Health and fulness of love most dread Lord 
and most trusty Cousin. Be it known unto you 
that a great discord or war hath arisen between 
us and our and your deadly enemies, the Saxons ; 
which war we have manfully waged now for nearly 
two years past, and henceforth mean and hope to 
wage and carry out to a good and effectual end, by 
the grace of God our Saviour, and by your help and 



1 62 Owen Glyndwr [1401 

countenance. But seeing that it is commonly reported 
by the prophecy, that before we can have the upper hand 
in this behalf, you and yours, our well beloved Cousins in 
Ireland must stretch forth thereto a helping hand, there- 
fore most dread Lord and trusty Cousin, with heart and 
soul we pray you that of your horse and foot soldiers, 
for the succour of us and our people who noAv this long 
while are oppressed by our enemies and yours, as well as 
to oppose the treacherous and deceitful will of those 
same enemies, you despatch to us as many as you shall 
be able with convenience and honour, saving in all 
things your honourable State, as quickly as may seem 
good to you. Delay not to do this by the love we bear 
you and as we put our trust in you, although we be un- 
known to you, seeing that, most dread Lord and Cousin, 
so long as we shall be able to manfully wage this war 
in our borders, as doubtless is dear to you, you and all 
the other Chiefs of your land of Ireland will in the mean- 
time have welcome peace and calm repose. And be- 
cause, my Lord Cousin, the bearers of these presents 
shall make things known to you more fully by word of 
mouth, if it please you, you shall give credence to them 
in all things which they shall say to you on our behalf, 
and you may trustfully confide to them whatsoever you 
will, dread Lord and Cousin, that we your poor cousin 
shall do. Dread Lord and Cousin, may the Almighty 
preserve your reverence and Lordship in long life and 
good fortune. 

" Written in North Wales on the twenty-ninth day of 
November [1401]." 



CHAPTER V 

THE KING AND HOTSPUR 



1402 



AS if the world of Britain were not already suf- 
ficiently excited, the spring of 1402 opened 
with tremendous portents. In the month of 
February a comet with its fiery streaming tail, " a ter- 
ror to the world," broke across the heavens and set all 
Europe trembling. The bards of Wales rose with 
one voice to the occasion, headed by lolo Goch, who 
recalled the fiery star that heralded the birth of 
Arthur, and even that other one which guided the 
Magi to our Saviour's cradle. 

The fiery shapes, too, that "Ht the front of heaven " 
at Owen's birth were recalled again with a fresh out- 
burst of enthusiasm, and the tail of this particular 
comet, which Adam of Usk saw by day as well as by 
night, while travelling towards Rome, curled up at 
times, in the eyes of credulous Welsh patriots, into a 
dragon's shape, the badge of Welsh nationality. 
Englishmen beheld it pointing at one time towards 
Wales, at another towards Scotland, and read in 
these mysterious changes portents for the coming 
year. Thunder-storms of terrific violence swept over 

163 



4 



164 Owen Glyndwr [1402 

the country. At Danbury, says Holinshed, while 
the people were in church, lightning struck the roof 
and destroyed the chancel, and while the storm was 
at its height the devil entered the sacred building, 
dressed as a Franciscan friar (one of Owen's well- 
wishers, it will be remembered), and leaped three 
times over the altar from right to left ; then, turning 
black in the face, he rushed down the aisle, actually 
passing between a man's legs, and leaving an over- 
powering smell of sulphur in his track. The man's 
legs were black ever after, so that there was no 
doubt about the nature of the visitant ! Other weird 
things happened in various parts of the country, 
which do not concern our story, except to show how 
strained were men's imaginations in a year which 
after all proved fruitful enough of events. 

Whatever faith Owen may have had in his own 
magical art, he at any rate did not waste time just 
now in incantations or in interpreting the prophecy, 
but swept down the Vale of Clwyd, making on his 
way a final clearance of Grey's desolated property. 
With much significance, read by the light of his 
future relations with the Mortimers and Percys, he 
spared the lordship of Denbigh, though its owners 
were still his open enemies. Descending the Vale, 
however, he fell upon Saint Asaph with merciless 
hand, destroying the cathedral, the bishop's palace, 
and the canon's house. Trevor was at this time the 
bishop, — the same, it will be remembered, who 
warned Henry and his council against exasperating 
Owen and the Welsh ; he had from the first gone 
over to the new King, had prominently assisted at 



1402] The King and Hotspur 165 

the deposition of Richard, and had since held many 
conspicuous offices. He was now a ruined man, an 
enforced exile from his diocese, and he must have 
derived but poor consolation from reminding his 
English friends of the accuracy of his prophecy. He 
came of the great border House of Trevor, and, 
among other things, built the first stone bridge in 
Wales, which may yet be seen stemming with five 
massive arches the turbulent torrents of the Dee at 
Llangollen. In the meantime he was a pensioner on 
the King, but he will appear later in a character of 
quite another sort. An entry of ;^66, paid to him 
at this time in lieu of his losses, appears on the Pell 
Rolls. 

No danger just now threatened from the 
English border nor, on the other hand, did any help 
come to Glyndwr from Ireland or the North. There 
was indeed something of a lull in Wales throughout 
this spring, unless perhaps for those unfortunate 
Welshmen who held back from Glyndwr's cause 
and yet ventured to remain in the country. They, 
at any rate, had not much peace. 

To this date is assigned the well-known story of 
Glyndwr and his cousin Howel Sele, that gruesome 
tragedy which has invested the romantic heights of 
Nannau with a ceaseless interest to generations of 
tourists, and many more generations of Welshmen, 
and has seized the fancy of the romancist and the 
poet. Now Nannau, where Vaughans have lived for 
many centuries, enjoys the distinction of being the 
most elevated country-seat in Wales, being some 
eight hundred feet above Dolgelly, which lies at 



1 66 Owen Glyndwr [1402 

the base of the beautiful grounds that cover the 
isolated hill on whose summit the present mansion 
stands. It is famous also, even in a region pre-emin- 
ent for its physical charms, for the surpassing beauty 
of its outlook, which people from every part of Brit- 
ain come annually in thousands to enjoy. To the 
south the great mass of Cader Idris rises immed- 
iately above, with infinite grandeur. To the west 
the Barmouth estuary gleams seaward through a 
vista of wood and mountain. To the north the 
valley of the rushing Mawddach opens deep into the 
hills, while to the eastward, where the twin peaks of 
the Arans fill the sky, spread those miles of foliage 
through which the crystal streams of the Wnion 
come burrowing and tumbling seawards. Nature 
showed even a wilder aspect to Glyndwr and the 
then lord of Nannau as they took their memorable 
walk together upon these same heights five centuries 
ago. 

At that time there stood in the meadows beneath, 
near the confluence of the Wnion and the Mawd- 
dach, the noble abbey of Cymmer, whose remains 
are still a conspicuous object in the landscape. 
Howel Sele was by no means an admirer or follower 
of his cousin Owen, and if latterly he had not dared 
openly to oppose him, he had at least held back ; his 
relationship to the chief alone saving him, no doubt, 
from the punishment meted out to others who were 
less prudent, or less faint-hearted. The worthy abbot 
of Cymmer, however, for some motive of his own, 
or perhaps in a genuine spirit of Christianity, en- 
deavoured to promote a better understanding be- 



1402J The King and Hotspur 167 

tween the relatives, and so far succeeded that Owen 
consented to come and visit Howel in peaceful 
fashion, bringing with him only a few attendants. 

The meeting took place and an amicable under- 
standing seemed assured. During the course of the 
day the two men, so runs the tale, went for a stroll 
in the park, Howel, at any rate, carrying his bow. 
He was celebrated for his prowess as a marksman, 
and Owen, catching sight of a buck through the 
trees, suggested that his cousin should give him an 
exhibition of his skill. Howel, falling in apparently 
with the proposal, bent his bow, and having feigned 
for a moment to take aim at the deer swung sud- 
denly round and discharged the arrow full at Owen's 
breast. The latter, either from singular forethought 
or by great good luck, happened to have a shirt of 
mail beneath his tunic, and the shaft fell harmlessly 
to the ground. The fate of Howel was swift and 
terrible. Accounts differ somewhat, but they all 
agree in the essential fact that neither his wife and 
family nor his friends ever set eyes upon the lord of 
Nannau again. It is supposed that the two men 
and their attendants forthwith engaged in deadly 
combat, Glyndwr proving the victor, and consigning 
his cousin to some terrible fate that was only guessed 
at long afterwards. In any case, he at once burnt 
the old house at Nannau to the ground, and its 
remains, Pennant tells us, were yet there in his day, 
— a hundred years ago. For more than a generation 
no man knew what had become of the ill-fated 
Howel, but forty years afterwards, near the spot 
where he was last seen, a skeleton corresponding to 



1 68 Owen Glyndwr [1402 

the proportions of the missing man was found inside 
a hollow oak tree, and it is said that there were 
those still living who could and did explain how the 
vanquished Howel had been immured there dead or 
alive by Glyndwr. The old oak lived on till the 
year 18 13, and collapsed beneath its weight of years 
on a still July night, a few hours after it had been 
sketched by the celebrated antiquary, Sir Richard 
Colt Hoare, who tells us it then measured twenty- 
seven feet in girth. It had been an object of pious 
horror for all time to the natives of the district, and 
was known as the " hollow oak of demons," and 
dread sounds were heard issuing from its vast trunk 
by all who were hardy enough to venture near it 
after nightfall. Sir Walter Scott, who once visited 
Nannau, remembered the weird story and the 
haunted oak when he was writing Marmion : 

*' All nations have their omens drear, 
Their legends wild of love or fear ; 
To Cambria look — the peasant see 
Bethink him of Glyndowerdy, 
And shun the spirit's Blasted Tree." 

But while Glyndwr was having things pretty much 
his own way in Wales throughout the spring of 1402, 
King Henry was in truth in great anxiety. To add 
to his cares and trouble he was much concerned with 
endeavours to secure a husband for his daughter 
Blanche, and a wife for himself in the person of 
Joanna of Brittany. For the lavish expenditure in- 
separable from these royal alliances he had to 
squeeze his people, and they were in no condition 



1402] The King and Hotspur 1 69 

to be squeezed, to say nothing of the fact that his 
captains and soldiers and garrisons in Wales were 
in a state of pecuniary starvation, and here and 
there in actual want of food. All this awakened 
much discontent and there were serious riots in 
many places. A plot of which the friars, chiefly 
represented by Glyndwr's friends the Franciscans, 
were the leaders, was discovered and crushed with 
much hanging and quartering. Even Henry's loyal 
subjects of London turned mutinous and their juries 
refused to convict the priests. The aid, however, of 
a packed jury in Islington was invoked, who excused 
themselves for some manifestly outrageous decisions 
with the naive but unanswerable plea that if they did 
not hang the prisoners they would be hanged them- 
selves. The report was still sedulously bruited 
abroad that Richard was alive, and, if anything, the 
idea gained ground ; while, to complete the distress 
of the King, the Scots were waging open war upon 
him in the North, and proving perhaps better allies 
to Glyndwr than if they had responded to that war- 
rior's appeals and landed in scattered bands upon 
the coast of Wales. The Percys, however, the 
King's " faithful cousins," confronted the Scots 
and were a host in themselves. He despatched his 
daughter Blanche and her hardly extracted dower 
to Germany, and a terrible example was made of 
the friars. Glyndwr and the condition of Wales one 
can hardly suppose he underestimated, but he per- 
mitted himself, at any rate, to shut his eyes to it. 

Henry's dream, since mounting the throne, had 
been an Eastern crusade. So far, however, his own 



170 Owen Glyndwr [1402 

unruly subjects and neighbours had allowed him but 
little breathing time, and he had been splashed with 
the mud of almost every county in England and 
Wales ; but now he had gone to Berkhampstead, his 
favourite palace, to rest and dream of that long- 
cherished scheme of Eastern adventure. 

'* So shaken as we are, so wan with care, 
Find we a time for frighted peace to pant. 
And breathe short-winded accents of new broils 
To be commenced in strands afar remote. 
No more the thirsty entrance of this soil 
Shall daub her lips with her own children's blood ; 
No more shall trenching war channel her fields, 
Nor bruise her flowerets with the armed hoofs 
Of hostile paces." 

But the month of June was not yet out, when all 
at once there came upon the King at Berkhampstead 
" a post from Wales laden with heavy news," which 
shattered all dreams of Palestine and turned his un- 
willing thoughts once more to the stormy hills 
whence came this urgent message. 

Late in May, Glyndwr had again left North Wales 
and with a large force made his way through the 
present counties of Montgomery and Radnor, and 
fallen on the as yet unravaged border of Hereford. 
Now it so happened that among the districts which 
here suffered the most were those belonging to the 
young Earl of March, the rightful heir to the throne, 
and on that account kept secure under lock and key 
by Henry. This child, for he was nothing more, 
was descended from Lionel, Duke of Clarence, third 



1402] The King and Hotspur 1 71 

son of Edward the Third. His title to the throne 
stood next to that of Richard, who had himself 
officially named him as his heir. Henry, sensible of 
his dangerous claim, kept the boy and his brother 
under his own charge, leaving their estates in Den- 
bigh and the South Wales Marches to be adminis- 
tered by their uncle, Edmund Mortimer, who was 
still a young man and not without renown as a 
soldier, Mortimer and other Lord Marchers had 
been notified in good time to raise the forces of the 
border counties and march out to meet the Welsh. 

They met upon the border in a narrow valley at 
Pilleth near Knighton, and the result was wholly 
disastrous to the English. The Welsh on this occa- 
sion were led by Rhys ap Gethin, one of Owen's most 
formidable captains, and they utterly overthrew 
Mortimer's army, driving it down the narrow valley 
of the Lugg below Pilleth hill where escape was 
difficult, and slaying eleven hundred men, among 
whom were great numbers of knights and gentle- 
men. Mortimer himself was captured, and it was 
said, with how much truth does not appear evident, 
that many of Mortimer's troops, who were his 
tenants, and Welshmen, turned their arms against 
their own side and made a bloody day still bloodier. 
The story of the outrages of the Welsh women upon 
the bodies of the slain is a familiar topic of dispute 
and not a very savoury one.* In regard to Owen's 



* Some thirty years ago the farmers of the district drove their 
ploughs into the old sod which from time immemorial had covered 
the long, steep slope of Pilleth hill, or Bryn Glas. In turning it up 
they came upon masses of human bones all collected in one spot, 



172 Owen Glyndwr [1402 

new captive, Mortimer, as the uncle and representa- 
tive of the rightful heir to the throne, he was of 
much more actual importance than Grey of Ruthin. 
But the Welsh chieftain had no personal grudge 
against the handsome and gallant young soldier who 
had fallen into his hands by the ordinary fortune of 
war. Indeed, as we know, he had a kindly feeling 
for the Percys and the Mortimers ; so much so that 
some of the King's most ardent friends, as well as 
Henry himself, strongly hinted that Sir Edmund 
was no unwilling prisoner, and that it was not wholly 
the chances of war which had placed him in Owen's 
hands. Mortimer's relations with Glyndwr later on 
might lend plausibility to such suggestions ; but it is 
difificult to suppose that had the former wished 
earlier for an alliance with Owen, he would have 
chosen such an unnecessarily bloody and risky man- 
ner of effecting it. Moreover Henry had reason to 
misrepresent Mortimer's sentiments, for the question 
of the hour was his ransom. There can, I think, be 
little doubt that Mortimer was at first as unwilling a 
prisoner as Grey. He and Owen may have soon 
developed a personal liking for each other, but that 
is of little importance. Mortimer at any rate seems 
to have been sent to Snowdon, or possibly to Owen's 
small prison at Llansantffraid in Glyndyfrdwy, which 
totters even now in extreme decay upon the banks 
of the Dee ; and ransom no doubt was regarded as 



which indicated without a doubt the burying-place of the battle of 
1402. The space was withdrawn from cultivation and a grove of 
trees was planted on it, which have now grown to a large size and 
form a prominent object in the valley. 



1402] The King and Hotspur 173 

the ordinary outcome of the affair by all parties, 
except the King. For it soon became evident that 
Henry, not unwilling to see a possible rival in 
durance vile and safe out of the way, was going to 
oppose all overtures for his ransom. 

Hotspur, Mortimer's brother-in-law, waxed hot 
and angry, as of late he had been apt to do with the 
King, but he was far away in the North looking 
after the Scottish invaders. He now wrote to Henry 
that it was a strange thing, seeing the great concern 
he had showed for Grey of Ruthin, that he should 
act thus towards a subject who was of even greater 
consequence, and moreover his (Percy's) brother-in- 
law. Getting no satisfaction, according to Leland, 
who quotes from an old chronicle, the fiery Hotspur 
went southward himself to Henry and demanded in 
no gentle terms the right to ransom his wife's 
brother. To this demand the King replied that he 
would not strengthen those who were his enemies 
by paying money to them. Hotspur retorted 
warmly " that the King owed it to those who had 
risked their lives upon his account, to come to their 
aid when in peril." The King rejoined angrily, 
" You are a traitor ; you would succour the enemies 
of myself and my kingdom." *' I am no traitor," 
said Percy, " but faithful and speak in good faith." 
The King then drew his sword ; whereupon Hot- 
spur, exclaiming, " Not here, but on the field of 
battle," left the royal presence, as it happened, 
for ever. 

This famous interview is practically endorsed by 
the rhymer Hardyng, Hotspur's personal attendant : 



174 Owen Glyndwr [1402 

'' Sir Henry sawe no grace for Mortimer, 
His wife's brother ; he went away unkende 
To Berwyk so, and after came no nere, 
Afore thei met at Shrowesbury in fere 
Wher then thei fought for cause of his extent. 
He purposed had Mortimer his coronement." 

Hardyng in the preceding verse gives two other 
reasons for the defection of the Percys, and though 
our story has not yet reached that notable crisis, the 
lines may perhaps be quoted here : 

'* The King hym blamed for he toke not Owen, 
When he came to him on his assurance, 
And he answered then to the King again, 
He might not so kepe his affiaunce, 
To shame himself, with such a variaunce 
The King blamed him for his prisoner, 
Th' Erie Douglas, for cause he was not there." 

This distinct statement from such an authority 
that Hotspur had met Glyndwr, referring of course 
to the previous year in Wales, should be conclusive, 
though it is not creditable to Henry's honour that 
he should throw in Hotspur's face the fact of his 
having failed to act treacherously towards the 
Welshman. The reference to the Earl of Douglas 
will become plain shortly. 

The victory of Pilleth had caused great enthusiasm 
among the Welsh, and made a particularly marked 
impression upon the southern and south-eastern dis- 
tricts, where the Norman baronial houses were 
strong, and where even the Welsh " gentiles " had 
by no means as yet given an eager welcome to 



1402] The King and Hotspur 1 75 

Owen's dragon standard with its accompaniment of 
flaming torches and pitiless spears. Hundreds of 
hitherto half-hearted Welshmen now joined Glyn- 
dwr, who, flushed with victory and strong in its 
prestige, turned fiercely upon Glamorgan and went 
plundering, burning, and ravaging his way through 
that fair county, taking little reck of the score or 
two of Norman castles so strong in defence but at 
this time so powerless for offence. He fell on Car- 
diff and destroyed the whole town, saving only the 
street where stood a religious house of his friends, 
or at any rate Henry's enemies, the Franciscans. 
Turning eastward he then sacked and burnt the 
bishop's palace at Llandaff, stormed Abergavenny 
Castle, and destroyed the town. 

Leaving his friends to hold the country he had so 
effectually roused, we next find him in the North, 
investing the three castles of Carnarvon, Harlech, 
and Criccieth, and reminding those who in his 
absence may have faltered in their allegiance that 
such an attitude was a costly one. Rhys and William 
ap Tudor from the small stone manor-house in 
Anglesey that gave a dynasty to Britain are with 
him again, though the latter, it will be remembered, 
had sought and gained at Conway the pardon of the 
King. Robert ap Meredydd of Cefn-y-fan and 
Gesail-Gyferch near Criccieth, was another trusty 
henchman of Glyndwr. But Robert's brother levan 
ap Meredydd stood for the King, and was one of the 
few men in West Carnarvonshire who did so. He 
was now in Carnarvon Castle, joint governor with 
John Bolde, and his brother was outside with Owen, 



176 Owen Glyndwr [1402 

—a little bit of family detail for which, though of 
no great importance, one is thankful amid the bloody 
and fiery chaos in which such a vast amount of per- 
sonality lies forgotten and ingulfed. 

It was not long after this that levan died in Car- 
narvon, but so completely occupied was the surround- 
ing country by Owen's forces and sympathisers, that 
they had to bring his body round by sea to his old 
home and bury it secretly in his own parish church 
of Penmorfa, where his dust still lies. His brother 
Robert, though he held by Glyndwr throughout 
most of his long struggle, eventually received the 
royal pardon, and succeeded to the estates. But 
even his attachment to the Welsh chieftain had not 
in any way atoned for his brother's opposition, or 
averted the inevitable fate which overtook the pro- 
perty of all Glyndwr's opponents. Both Cefn-y-fan 
and Gesail-Gyferch were burnt this year to ashes. 
At the former the conflagration was so prodigious, 
says an old local legend, that the ruins smoked and 
the coals glowed for two whole years afterwards. 
Gesail-Gyferch was rebuilt by Robert and may be 
seen to-day, much as he made it, between the vil- 
lages of Penmorfa and Dolbenmaen. Its owner, 
when the war was over, married, and had a host of 
children, from whom innumerable Welsh families are 
proud to trace their descent. If this gossip about 
the sons of Meredydd and about Howel Sele may 
seem too parenthetical, it serves in some sort to 
illustrate the severance of families and the relentless 
vengeance which Glyndwr himself executed upon all 
who opposed him. 



1402] The King and Hotspur 177 

In the meantime, while Glyndwr was besieging the 
castles upon the Carnarvon and Merioneth coast, his 
great opponent Henry was being sorely pressed. The 
battle of Pilleth and Mortimer's captivity had raised a 
storm among those who had been the King's friends, 
and worse things seemed in the air. Prince Thomas, 
his second son, who was acting as viceroy in Ireland, 
was reduced by want of money to sore straits, while 
forty thousand Scotsmen, with numerous French 
allies in their train, were far outnumbering any 
forces the Percys unaided could bring against them. 
But with all this the King was burning to crush 
Owen and chastise the Welsh, and it was from no 
want of will or vigour that he had for so many weeks 
to nurse his wrath. Richard, Earl de Grey, had been 
left in charge of the South Wales Marches, while the 
Earl of Arundel was doing his best to keep order 
north of the Severn. On July 23rd the King was at 
Lilleshall, in Shropshire. Provisions, arms, and men 
were pouring into Welshpool, Ludlow, and Mont- 
gomery, Hereford, Shrewsbury, and Chester. Money 
was scarcer than ever, and had to be borrowed in 
every direction from private individuals. Henry him- 
self was riding restlessly from Shropshire to Lincoln, 
from Lincoln to Nottingham, and again from Not- 
tingham to his favourite post of observation at 
Lichfield. 

At last all was ready ; the reduction of Wales was 
for once the paramount object of the King's inten- 
tions. Three great armies were to assemble on Au- 
gust the 27th at Chester, Shrewsbury, and Hereford 
under the commands of the Prince of Wales, the 



178 Owen Glyndwr [1402 

King himself, and the Earl of Warwick respectively. 
After much delay this mighty host, numbering in all 
by a general consensus of authorities one hundred 
thousand men, prepared to set itself in motion. 

It was the first week of September when it crossed 
the border. The troops carried with them fifteen 
days' provisions, a precaution much exceeding the or- 
dinary commissariat limitations of those times, but 
prompted by the bitter memories of three futile and 
painful campaigns, and more than ever necessary ow- 
ing to the devastated condition of Wales. With such 
an army, led by the King himself, England might 
well think that the Welsh troubles were at an end. 

Owen's character as a magician had been firmly 
established this long time in Wales. His power of 
eluding the King's armies, to say nothing of his 
occasional victories, and still more of the way in 
which the elements had seemed to fight for him, had 
given him even throughout England something of a 
reputation for necromancy. The practical mind of 
Henry himself had been disturbed by the strange 
rumours that had reached him, coupled with his own 
experiences of that implacable and irrepressible foe 
who claimed the power of " calling spirits from the 
vasty deep," and of being outside " the roll of com- 
mon men." 

If the English had hitherto only half believed that 
Owen was a wizard, they were in less than a week 
convinced that he was the very devil himself, against 
whom twice their hundred thousand men would be 
of slight avail. Never within man's memory had 
there been such a September in the Welsh mount- 



1402] The King and Hotspur 1 79 

ains. The very heavens themselves seemed to de- 
scend in sheets of water upon the heads of these 
magnificent and well-equipped arrays. Dee, Usk, 
and Wye, with their boisterous tributaries that 
crossed the English line of march, roared bank-high, 
and buried all trace of the fords beneath volumes 
of brown tumbling water, while bridges, homesteads, 
and such flocks as the Welsh had not driven west- 
ward for safety were carried downwards to the sea. 
In these days of rapid travel it seems incredible that 
so overwhelming and, for the times, well-found a 
host, could be beaten in less than a fortnight with- 
out striking a blow. It is an object-lesson in medie- 
val warfare worth taking to heart and remembering. 
Night after night the soldiers lay in the open, 
drenched to the skin, and half starved on account 
of the havoc wrought upon their provisions by the 
weather. The thunder roared, we are told, with 
fearful voice and the lightning flashed against inky 
skies, above the heads of that shivering, superstitious 
host, at the will, it seemed to them, of the magic 
wand of the accursed Glyndwr. Numbers died from 
exposure. The royal tent was blown flat, and Henry 
himself only escaped severe injury by being at the 
moment in full armour. 

The King, Hardyng tells us, 

" Had never but tempest foule and raine 
As long as he was ay in Wales grounde ; 
Rockes and mystes, winds and stormes, certaine 
All men trowed witches it made that stounde," 

How far the English armies penetrated on this 



i8o Owen Glyndwr [1402 

memorable occasion we do not know ; but we do 
know that by the 22nd of September, just a fortnight 
after they had first crossed the border, there was not 
an EngHshman in Wales outside the castles, while 
the King himself, a day or two later, was actually 
back at Berkhampstead, striving, in the domestic 
seclusion of his own palace, to forget the unspeaka- 
ble miseries of his humiliating failure. Where Owen 
distributed his forces through this tempestuous Sep- 
tember, there is no evidence ; except that, following 
the inevitable tactics of his race before great invas- 
ions, he certainly retired with his forces into the 
mountains. It was not even necessary on this occa- 
sion to fall upon the retreating enemy. But when 
one reads of the Welsh retiring to the mountains, 
the natural tendency to think of them huddling 
among rocks and caves must be resisted. The 
Welsh mountains, even the loftiest, in those days 
were very thickly sprinkled with oak forests, and in 
the innumerable valleys and foot-hills there was 
splendid pasture for large herds of stock. There 
must have been plenty of dwellings, too, among these 
uplands, and the Welsh were adepts at raising tem- 
porary shelters of stone thatched with heather. 

Owen now might well be excused if he really began 
to think nimself chosen of the gods. At any rate 
he was justified in the proud boast that Shakespeare 
at this time puts into his mouth : 

" Three times hath Henry Bolingbroke made head 
Against my power. Thrice from the banks of Wye 
And sandy-bottomed Severn have I sent 
Him bootless home, and weather-beaten back." 



1402] The King and Hotspur 1 8 1 

Shakespeare is accurate enough so far, but he is 
sadly astray when he makes the news of Mortimer's 
capture and the defeat of Pilleth reach Henry upon 
the same day as the victory of Percy over the Scots 
at Homildon. The former was fought in the pre- 
vious June, whereas the latter took place while 
Henry was in the very throes of his struggle with 
the Welsh elements and Owen's art magic. In fact 
the news of the crushing defeat of the Scots reached 
him at the moment of his arrival at home, after his 
disastrous campaign, and might well have afforded 
him much consolation, unless perchance the contrast 
between his own luckless campaign and that of Hot- 
spur tempered his joy and galled his pride. 

This same battle of Homildon, or Humbledon, 
near Wooler, exercised considerable influence upon 
the affairs of Owen. I have already remarked that 
forty thousand Scots, having with them many French 
knights and gentlemen, were across the border. They 
were commanded by Earl Douglas, who had most 
of the chivalry and nobility of Scotland at his back. 
There was no particular excuse for the invasion ; it 
was a marauding expedition, pure and simple, on an 
immense scale, and it swept through Northumberland 
and Durham almost unopposed, for the forces of 
Percy were too inadequate for even his venturous 
spirit to offer battle. 

Laden with the spoils of two counties the Scots 
turned their faces homeward entirely satisfied with 
their luck. Unfortunately for them, they elected to 
divide their forces, ten thousand men, including the 
commander and all the choice spirits of the army. 



1 82 Owen Glyndwr [1402- 

taking a separate route. As these latter approached 
the Scottish border they found their path barred 
by Hotspur, who had slipped round them, with a 
slightly superior force. They would have been glad 
enough to get home with their booty, but Percy 
gave them no option ; they had nothing for it but 
to fight. 

The result of the battle was disastrous to the 
Scots. The English archers broke every effort they 
made to get to close quarters, and finally routed 
them with scarcely any assistance from the men-at- 
arms. An immense number were slain ; five hund- 
red were drowned in the Tweed ; eighty noblemen 
and knights, the flower of their chivalry, including 
the Earl of Douglas himself, were captured. A 
goodly haul for Percy in the shape of ransom ! But 
it was these very prisoners and this very question of 
ransom that filled Hotspur's cup of bitterness against 
the King and brought about his league with Glyn- 
dwr. The congratulations which went speeding 
northward from Henry to his "dear cousin " were 
somewhat damped by instructions that the Scottish 
prisoners were on no account to be set at liberty 
or ransomed, but were in fact to be handed over 
to himself — contrary to all custom and privilege. 
Large sums were already owing to Percy for his out- 
lay in North Wales on the King's behalf, and he was 
sullen, as we know, at the King's neglect of his 
brother-in-law Mortimer, still lying unransomed in 
Owen's hands. He was now enraged, and his rage 
bore fruit a few months later on the bloody field of 
Shrewsbury. Nor did Henry see the face of one of 



1402] The King and Hotspur 183 

his prisoners till they appeared in arms against him, 
as the price of their liberty, upon that fateful day. 

The close of this year was marked by no events of 
note ; marriage bells were in the air, for the King 
was espousing Joanna of Brittany, and Mortimer, 
now embittered against Henry, allied himself with 
Glyndwr's fortunes and married his fourth daughter, 
Jane. 

Mortimer's alliance was indeed of immense value 
to Glyndwr. He was not only the guardian and 
natural protector of the rightful heir to the throne, 
his nephew, but he was a possibly acceptable candi- 
date himself, in the event of a fresh shuffling of the 
cards. He had moreover large possessions and 
castles in the South Wales Marches, and in the Vale 
of Clwyd, whose occupants would now be irrevocably 
committed to the Welsh cause. 

The monk of Evesham tells us that the marriage 
was celebrated with the greatest solemnity about 
the end of November, though where the ceremony 
took place we do not know. A fortnight afterwards 
Mortimer wrote to his Radnor tenants this letter in 
French, which has been fortunately preserved and 
is now in the British Museum : 

" Very dear and well-beloved, I greet you much and 
make known to you that Oweyn Glyndwr has raised a 
quarrel of which the object is, if King Richard be alive, 
to restore him to his crown ; and if not that, my hon- 
oured nephew, who is the right heir to the said crown, 
shall be King of England, and that the said Oweyn will 
assert his right in Wales. And I, seeing and considering 
that the said quarrel is good and reasonable, have 



184 Owen Glyndwr tl402 

consented to join in it, and to aid and maintain it, and 
by the grace of God to a good end. Amen. I ardently 
hope, and from my heart, that you will support and 
enable me to bring this struggle of mine to a successful 
issue. I have moreover to inform you that the lord- 
ships of Melenyth, Werthresson, Rayadr, the Commote 
of Udor, Arwystly, Keveilloc, and Kereynon are lately 
come into our possession. Wherefore I moreover entreat 
you that you will forbear making inroad into my said 
lands, or doing any damage to my said tenantry, and 
that you furnish them with provisions at a certain 
reasonable price, as you would wish that I should treat 
you ; and upon this very point be pleased to send me an 
answer. Very dear and well-beloved, God give you 
grace to prosper in your beginnings, and to arrive at a 
happy time. Written at Melenyth the 13th day of 
December. 

" Edmund Mortimer. 

" To my very dear and well-beloved John Greyndor, 
Howell Vaughan, and all the gentles and commons of 
Radnor, and Prestremde." * 

This note was no doubt chiefly aimed at Sir John 
Greyndor, or Grindor, who guarded the King's 
interests and commanded several castles at various 
times. It was the last incident of moment in the 
year 1402. 



* Presteign. 




CHAPTER VI 

THE BATTLE OF SHREWSBURY 



1403 

THE opening of the year 1403 was a time full of 
promise for Owen's cause. The western cas- 
tles by whose capture he set such store were 
hard pressed. Llandovery in the Vale of Towy had 
been reduced ; Llandeilo Fawr, close by, burnt. The 
noble castle of Dynevor, which had been the royal 
seat of the Princes of South Wales, was in difificult- 
ies, and a descent on the southern shores of Eng- 
land by the French was once more looked for. The 
Scots, too, had again plucked up their courage, and 
threatened to give trouble. King Henry was beg- 
ging or demanding loans from all sorts and condi- 
tions of men, that he might be enabled to hold his 
own against the Welsh, the Scots, and the French. 
His affairs in truth were anything but prosperous. 
The Prince of Wales, however, was at his post at 
Shrewsbury, though pressing for men and money. 
He informs his father that Glyndwr is preparing to 
invade England, and Henry communicates the dis- 
quieting news to his council, though this is some- 

185 



1 86 Owen Glyndwr [1403 

what later, since in May the Prince is writing urgent 
letters for relief. In these he declares that his sol- 
diers will remain no longer with him unless they are 
paid, and that Glyndwr is levying all the power of 
North and South Wales to destroy the Marches and 
the adjoining counties of England. The Prince goes 
on to say : " If our men are withdrawn from us we 
must retire to England and be disgraced forever. 
At present we have very great expenses, and we 
have raised the largest sum in our power to meet 
them from our little stock of jewels." This, it may 
perhaps be again remarked, is the London roue and 
trifler of popular fancy ! 

" Our two castles of Harlech and Lampadarn are be- 
sieged and we must relieve and victual them within ten 
days, and besides that protect the March around us with 
one-third of our forces. And now since we have fully 
shown the state of these districts, please to take such 
measures as shall seem best to you for the safety of 
these same parts. And be well assured we have fully 
shown to you the peril of whatever may happen here if 
remedy be not sent in time." 

Reinforcements of some kind must have reached 
the ardent young soldier very soon. For within a 
week or two he exercised a most signal piece of ven- 
geance against Glyndwr and apparently without 
opposition. This was no less than the complete de- 
struction of Sycherth and Glyndyfrdwy, while Owen 
was busy upon the Merioneth coast. As all we 
know of this interesting affair is from the Prince's 
own pen, I cannot do better than quote in full the 
letter by which he communicated the news to his 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 187 

father and his council. The original is preserved in 
the British Museum, and is in the French language. 
It is dated May 15th, no year unfortunately being 
aflfixed. Some difference of opinion as to the latter 
detail exists, but this year (1403), the latest of those 
in dispute, seems to me the likeliest. 

" Very dear and entirely well beloved, we greet you 
much from our whole heart, thanking you, very dearly 
for the attention you have paid to everything needful 
that concerned us during our absence, and we pray of 
you very earnestly the continuance of your good and 
kind disposition ; as our trust is in you. By way of 
news that have here occurred, if you wish to hear of 
them, we have among other matters been lately informed 
that Owen de Glyndowrdy has assembled his forces, and 
those of other rebels adhering to him in great number ; 
purposing to commit inroads, and in case of any resist- 
ance being made to him by the English, to come to 
battle with them, for so he vaunted to his people. 
Wherefore we took our forces and marched to a place of 
the said Oweyn well built, which was his principal man- 
sion, called Saghern [Sycherth], where we thought we 
should have found him, if he had an inclination to fight 
in the manner he had said, but on our arrival there, we 
found nobody ; and therefore caused the whole place 
to be burnt, and several other houses near it be- 
longing to his tenants. We thence marched straight 
to his other place of Glyndowerdy to seek for him there 
and we caused a fine lodge in his park to be destroyed 
by fire, and laid waste all the country around. We 
there halted for the night and certain of our people sal- 
lied forth into the country, and took a gentleman of the 
neighbourhood who was one of the said Oweyn's chief 



1 88 Owen Glyndwr [1403 

captains. This person offered five hundred pounds for 
his ransom to preserve his life, and to be allowed two 
weeks for the purpose of raising that sum of money ; but 
the offer was not accepted and he received death, as did 
several of his companions, who were taken the same day. 
We then proceeded to the Commote of Edeyrnion in 
Merionethshire, and there laid waste a fine and populous 
country ; thence we went to Powys, and there being a 
want of provender in Wales for horses, we made our 
people carry oats with them and pursued our march ; 
and in order to give you full intelligence of this march 
of ours and of everything that has occurred here, we 
send to you our well beloved esquire, John de Waterton, 
to whom you will be pleased to give entire faith, and 
credence in what he shall report to you touching the 
events above mentioned. And may our Lord have you 
always in his holy keeping. Given under our Seal at 
Shrewsbury the 15th day of May." 

If, as I think, 1403 is the right year to which we 
should assign this letter, it may seem strange that 
Glyndwr should have left his estates to their fate. 
On the other hand, Sycherth, or Saghern as the 
Prince calls it, actually touched Offa's Dyke and the 
English border, while Glyndyfrdwy, as I have before 
noted, was within sight of Dinas Bran, the grim out- 
post of English power. Glyndwr's attention had 
been largely devoted to South Wales and was now 
bent on securing those great castles on the Merion- 
eth and Carnarvon coast, which with their sea con- 
nections threatened him perpetually in his rear. 
Above all, his aspirations had now soared to such a 
height and the stake he was playing for was so great 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 189 

it is not likely that the loss of a couple of manor- 
houses and a few other buildings was of much im- 
port to him. If he won his cause, they were of no 
moment at all. If, on the other hand, he lost it, all 
was over ; they would certainly be no longer his. 
A want of local knowledge has led many historians 
astray in the matter of these manors of Glyndwr's, 
and they have repeated each other's mistakes, ignor- 
ing the Cynllaeth property, and only transferring the 
name of its much larger house to the banks of the 
Dee. Even Pennant falls into the error, and is prob- 
ably responsible for that of many of his successors. 

This is the more curious in view of Prince Henry's 
letter, distinctly stating that he first destroyed 
Owen's principal mansion at that point and natur- 
ally so, as it would be the first in his path on the 
direct route from Shrewsbury, following the valleys 
of the Vyrnwy and the Tanat, and then up the 
Cynllaeth brook, where Sycherth lies. Prince 
Henry's failure to spell the name of Owen's resi- 
dence intelligibly is of no moment whatever, and is 
almost lucid compared to some of the Norman at- 
tempts to render Welsh names into English. 

Sir Henry Ellis and others who, though realising 
that Owen had two separate properties, are not 
familiar with the district, fall back on Leland, who 
alludes to Rhaggat, the present seat of the Lloyds, 
as having been " a place of Glyndwr's," and explain 
Prince Henry's " Sagherne " in that manner. Rhag- 
gat, beyond a doubt, whatever dwelling may then 
have stood there, was the property of Glyndwr, see- 
ing that it was on his Glyndyfrdwy estate and less 



IQO Owen Glyndwr [1403 

than two miles up the Dee from his Glyndyfrdwy 
house. But the Prince would have had to pass by 
the latter to reach Rhaggat, reversing the stated or- 
der of his operations, whereas his short campaign as 
described by himself took the objects of his attack, 
Sycherth, Glyndyfrdwy, and the Vale of Edeyrnion 
in due order. These are matters, it is true, rather 
of local than of general interest. Still as the locality 
is one which great numbers of strangers visit for its 
beauty, I may perhaps be pardoned for entering 
somewhat minutely into these details. 

While the Prince was thus doing his best upon a 
small scale near the border, and sore distressed for 
money to pay his men, the castles of Harlech, Cric- 
cieth, Conway, Carnarvon, and Rhuddlan were hard 
pressed. Being in the royal counties, they were 
held and manned at the royal charge and were feel- 
ing to the full the pinch of poverty. Owen, entirely 
satisfied with the prospect of their speedy reduction, 
moved south about the time that the Prince was 
wasting his property on the Cynllaeth and the Dee. 
We hear of him in piteous letters for aid, sent by 
Jankyn Hanard, the Constable of Dynevor Castle, on 
the Towy, to his brother — Constable of Brecon, who 
was in but little better plight. In this correspond- 
ence the writer declares that Glyndwr dominates the 
whole neighbouring country with 8240 spears at his 
back ; that Rhys Gethin, the victor of Pilleth, is 
with him, also Henry Don, Rhys Ddu, and Rhys ap 
Griffith ap Llewelyn, the son of that gallant gentle- 
man of Cardiganshire who made such a cheerful sac- 
rifice of his head, it will be remembered, two years 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 191 

before, when King Henry was at Strata Florida, 
trying in vain to come to blows with Owen. 

"There is great peril for me " continues the panic- 
stricken Constable, " for they [Glyndwr's soldiers] 
have made a vow that they will all have us ded 
therein ; wherefor I pray thee that thou wilt not 
boggle us, but send to us warning within a short time 
whether we schule have any help or no." The garri- 
son, he reports, are fainting, in victuals and men, 
and they would all be glad enough to steal away to 
Brecon, where the castle is in a better state for 
holding out. " Jenkin ap Llewelyn, William Gwyn, 
Thomas ap David, and moni other gentils be in per- 
son with Owen." He tells also of the capture of 
Carmarthen just effected by Glyndwr, — both town 
and castles, — with a loss of fifty men to the defenders. 
A second letter, written early in July, a few days 
only after the first one and from the same frightened 
commandant, describes Glyndwr as still halting in 
his mind as to whether or no he should burn Car- 
marthen. It goes on to relate how Owen and most 
of his army moved forward to the great castle of 
Kidwelly, which stood upon the seacoast near the 
mouth of the Towy, some ten miles distant. 

But in the meantime the Anglo-Flemings from 
Western Pembroke and Gower, of all districts in 
Wales the most hostile to a Cymric revival, were 
coming up again in strong force, under their lord 
and governor, Thomas Earl Carew. Glyndwr halted 
on July 9th at St. Clear's and opened negotiations 
with Carew, influenced probably by the view that 
Western Pembroke with its sturdy Teutonic stock, 



192 Owen Glyndwr [ho3 

and line of impregnable castles, would prove more 
difficult to conquer and to hold than the effort was 
worth. While pourparlers were proceeding, he sent 
forward seven hundred men, to discover if it were 
possible to get to the rear of the Anglo-Flemish 
force, but they were cut off to a man and killed. 
This was the most serious loss the Welsh had yet 
sustained, Carew, however, did not follow up his 
advantage, and Glyndwr, who, we are told, had much 
booty stored in what was left of Carmarthen, made 
his headquarters there for several days. 

It is impossible to follow Owen step by step 
through the hurly-burly of ruin, fire, and slaughter 
which he created during this summer in South Wales. 
It would be wearisome work, even if we could track 
his steps from castle to castle, and ' from town to 
town with accuracy. But there is ample enough 
evidence of his handiwork and of the terror he 
spread, in the panic-stricken correspondence that 
came out of the Marches from all sorts of people 
during these months, and which anyone may read 
to-day. We hear from time to time of his lieuten- 
ants, of Rhys Gethin, the Tudors, and many others, 
but no name in the minds of men ever seems to ap- 
proach that of the dread chief, who was the life and 
organiser of every movement. Whether Owen is 
present in person at a siege or a battle or not, it is 
always with his enemies, " Owen's men," and " Owen's 
intentions," " Owen's magic, ambition, and wicked- 
ness " ; and at the terror of his name nervous people 
and monks were trembling far into the midland 
counties. An invasion of England was thoroughly 



1403J The Battle of Shrewsbury 1 93 

expected at various times during 1403, and such a 
visit from a warrior who could call at will the light- 
ning and the tempest to his aid, and whose track was 
marked by a desolation, so it was rumoured, more 
pitiless than even medieval ethics approved of, was 
a terrible eventuality. In the eastern counties men 
were informed for certain that he was soon to be at 
Northampton, while the monks of St. Albans hung 
a supphcation upon the chancel wall to the Almighty 
God to spare them from Glyndwr. 

John Faireford, Receiver of Brecon, writes urg- 
ently to the authorities of the county of Hereford, 
telling them how all the gentry of Carmarthen had 
now risen treasonably against the King, and how his 
friend, the Constable of Dynevor, was in vain appeal- 
ing to him for help ; how Owain Glyndwr with his 
false troops was at Llandover, the men of that castle 
being assured to him, and the Welsh soldiers all 
lying around the castle at their ease ; and again how 
Glyndwr was on his march to that very town of 
Brecon for the destruction of the same, " which God 
avert." Faireford begs them to rally all the counties 
round and to prepare them at once for resisting these 
same rebels with all haste possible for the avoiding 
of greater peril. "And you will know," writes he, 
" that all the Welsh nation, being taken a little by 
surprise, is adhering to this evil purpose of rebel- 
lion, and if any expedition of cavalry can be made 
be pleased to do that first in these Lordships of 
Brecon and Cantref Sellys." 

Within a few days a letter from the same hand is 

forwarded to the King himself. 
13 



194 Owen Glyndwr [1403 

" My most noble and dread Lord, I have received at 
Brecon certain letters addressed to me by John Skid- 
more, the which enclosed within this letter, I present unto 
your high person by the bearer of these, that it may 
please your gracious lordship to consider the mischief 
and perils comprised in them, and to ordain thereupon 
speedy remedy for the destruction and resistance of the 
rebels in those parts of South Wales, who are treacher- 
ously raised against you and your Majesty, so that your 
castles and towns and the faithful men in them be not 
thus ruined and destroyed for lack of aid and succour. 
And besides, may it please your lordship to know that 
the rebels of this your lordship of Brecon, together with 
their adherents, are lying near the town of Brecon doing 
all the mischief they can to its town and neighbourhood, 
and they purpose, all of them together, to burn all per- 
taining to the English in these same parts if they be not 
resisted in haste. The whole of the Welsh nation are by 
all these said parties conformed in this rebellion, and 
with good will consent together as only appears from 
day to day. May it please your royal Majesty to ordain 
a final destruction of all the false nation aforesaid, or 
otherwise all your faithful ones in these parts are in 
great peril." 

The sheriff of Hereford had been warned by the 
King to proceed against Brecon with the forces of 
his county, and relieve the siege. This he reports 
later, that he has done with some success ; slaying 
240 of the Welsh, though with what loss to himself 
he refrains from mentioning. This diversion seems 
in no way to have relieved the general situation ; for 
after describing the fight at Brecon he goes on to 
state that 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 195 

" these same rebels purpose again to come in haste 
with a great multitude to take the town (which God 
avert) and to approach to the Marches and counties ad- 
joining to the destruction of them, which force we have 
no power to resist without your most earnest aid and 
succour, and this greatly displeases us by reason of the 
grievous costs and labours which it will be needful for 
us to sustain. In reference to which matters, our most 
dread and sovereign Lord, may it please you to ordain 
speedy remedy, which cannot be as we deem without 
your gracious arrival in these parts for no other hope 
remains." 

This appeal is signed ** your humble lieges the 
Sheriffs, Knights, Esquires, and Commons of your 
County of Hereford." Hugh de Waterton follows 
in the same alarmist strain : 

" For the honour of God and the preservation of your 
estate and honour may it please your Highness to have 
this in your remembrance and soon to cause to commit 
to such an array of sufficient persons, knights, and 
esquires, as shall be willing to give their whole diligence 
and trouble for the protection of your honour in the 
preservation of your faithful lieges and the punishment 
of your rebels, or otherwise the only thing that can be 
said, is, it is likely you will find all in confusion which 
God avert." 

Then follows William de Beauchamp writing to the 
same purpose in a long, rambling letter to the King.' 
Lastly Richard Kingeston, Archdeacon of Hereford 
and Dean of Windsor and general administrator for 
the King on the Southern Marches, within the same 
period of panic, appeals direct to his Majesty. 



196 Owen Glyndwr [1403 

In one of these missives he says : 

" From day to day letters are arriving from Wales by 
which you may learn that the whole country is lost un- 
less you go there as quick as possible. Be pleased to set 
forth with all your power and march by night as well 
as by day, for the salvation of those parts. It will be a 
great disgrace as well as damage to lose in the beginning 
of your reign a country which your ancestors gained 
and retained so long ; for people speak very unfavour- 
ably; . . ." 

This is signed " Your lov^^Iy creature, Richard Kinge- 
ston," with a postscript added, " And for God's love, 
my liege Lord, think on yourself," 

The second letter, written somewhat later, con- 
tains the following : 

" There are come into our country more than four hun- 
dred of the rebels of Owen and they have captured and 
robbed within your county of Hereford many men and 
beasts in great number as Miles Walter the bearer of 
these presents will more fully tell you by mouth than I 
can write to you at present, to whom may it please you 
to give your faith and credence in that on which he shall 
inform you for the preservation of your said county and 
of all the country around." 

The said Miles Walter, moreover, is 

" the most valiant man at arms in Herefordshire or the 
Marches as he has served his Majesty well and lost 
all that he hath. He begs for a hundred lances and 
six hundred archers at once until your most gracious 
arrival for the salvation of us all ; for, my most dread 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 197 

Lord, you will find for certain that if you do not come 
in your own person to await your rebels in Wales you will 
not find a single gentleman that will stop in your said 
county [Hereford], and leave naught that you do not 
come, for no man that may counsel you to the contrary. 
This day the Welshmen suppose that and trust that you 
will not come there and therefore for God's love make 
them false men. . . . For salvation of your shire 
and Marches trust you naught to any lieutenant. 
** Written at Hereford in very great haste. 
"Your humble creature and 

continual orator." 

I have somevv^hat tried the reader's patience, per- 
haps, with such a multiplication of extracts all sound- 
ing the same note ; but in dealing with scenes so 
scanty of all record save the bare detail of siege and 
slaughter, it seems to me that human voices, full of 
the fears and alarms of the moment, coming to us out 
of this almost forgotten period, have more than ordin- 
ary value. Glyndwr, too, at this moment steps out 
of his armour and gives us one of those brief glimpses 
of the man within, which one so eagerly grasps at. 
To what extent he was himself imbued with the 
superstition that surged around him and so con- 
spicuously centred upon his own name, must always 
be a matter of curiosity. That he was very far from 
a sceptic, however, he gives us conclusive proof ; for 
while lying at Carmarthen after settling matters with 
Carew, he was seized with a desire to consult a 
soothsayer ; and acting upon this he sent for a cert- 
ain Welshman out of Gower, whose reputation for 
forecasting future events, and " skill in interpreting 



198 Owen Glyndzvr [1403 

the Brut," was great. Hopkyn ap Thomas was the 
name of this prophet of Gower, and when Owen de- 
manded what the future had in store for himself and 
his cause, the local wise man showed himself at any 
rate no sycophant, though a false prophet, as it so 
turned out. For he boldly informed the Welsh 
leader that within a short time he would be taken 
prisoner under a black banner between Carmarthen 
and Gower. 

But all this earlier period of the summer, while 
Glyndwr was marching this way and that throughout 
South Wales, now repelling the Flemings on the 
west, now ravaging the English border on the east, 
matters in England closely connected with his own 
fortunes were quickly ripening for one of the most 
critical events of this period of English history. The 
Prince of Wales, after his brief raid on Sycherth and 
Glyndyfrdwy, had remained inactive at Shrewsbury, 
unable from lack of means to move the levies of the 
four border counties, who remained in whole or part, 
and somewhat discontented, beneath his banner. The 
Pell Rolls show a note for July 17th, of the sum of 
;^8io8 for the wages of four barons, 20 knights, 476 
esquires, and 2500 archers. The King, who had been 
by no means deaf to the frantic appeals which had 
come pouring in upon him from Wales, had fully in- 
tended to act upon them in person. He was always 
as ready, however, to answer a summons from the 
North as he was reluctant to face the truth in the 
West. Wales had been virtually wrested from him 
by Glyndwr, and he had ample warning that the 
latter was even preparing for an invasion of Eng- 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 199 

land, where there existed a growing faction, wearied 
by his ceaseless demands for money, which produced 
so little glory and so much disgrace. 

But once again he turned from scenes that for a 
long time had been a standing reproach, both to 
himself and England, and started for the North. 
Even if he had been only bent on assisting the 
Percys in stemming a threatened invasion of the 
Scots, one might well suppose that the virtual loss of 
what was a considerable portion of his dominions 
near home, together with an equally imminent inva- 
sion from that quarter, would demand his first atten- 
tion. But there is not even this much to be said. 
The King cherished aspirations to be another Ed- 
ward the First ; he had already achieved a precarious 
footing in Scotland and made grants of conquered 
territory across the border to English subjects, al- 
ways providing, of course, they could maintain them- 
selves there. One has the strange picture of an 
otherwise sensible and long-headed monarch accept- 
ing perennial defeat and defiance in Wales, while 
straining after the annexation of distant territories 
that were as warlike as they were poor. The Percys 
had in fact for the past few months been playing at 
war with the Scots, and deceiving Henry, while 
laying plans for a deep game in quite another part 
of Britain. The King, stern and at times even cruel 
towards the world in general, was astonishingly com- 
placent and trustful towards that arch-plotter, the 
Earl of Northumberland, who in defiance of his 
master, though in strict accord with equity, had kept 
bis hold upon the Scottish prisoners of Homildon ; 



200 Owen Glyndwr [1403 

answering the King's letters of remonstrance in light 
and even bantering vein. But now all trace of ill- 
feeling would seem to have vanished, as Henry and 
his forces, on July loth, rest for a day or two at 
Higham Ferrers, on their way to the assistance of 
the Percys ; not to stem an invasion of the Scots, 
but to further the King's preposterous and ill-timed 
designs upon their territory. But this mad project 
was nipped in the bud at the Northamptonshire town 
in a manner that may well have taken Henry's 
breath away and brought him to his senses. 

He has just informed his council that he has re- 
ceived news from Wales telling him of the gallant 
bearing of his beloved son, and orders ;^iooo to be 
paid to his war chest. He then proceeds to tell 
them that he is on his way to succour his dear and 
loyal cousins, the Earl of Northumberland and his son 
Henry, in the conflict which they have honourably 
undertaken for him, and as soon as that campaign 
shall have ended, with the aid of God he will hasten 
to Wales. The next day he heard that his " beloved 
and loyal cousins " were in open revolt against him, 
and, instead of fighting the Scots, were hastening 
southwards with all their Homildon prisoners as 
allies and an ever gathering force to join Glyndwr. 

What was the exact nature of this alliance, whose 
proclamation fell upon the King like a thunderclap, 
can only be a matter of conjecture. There are whis- 
pers, as we know, of messages and messengers pass- 
ing between Glyndwr and Mortimer on the one 
hand and the Percys on the other, this long time. 
That they intended to act in unison there is, of 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 201 

course, no doubt. Shakespeare has anticipated by 
some years and used with notable effect the famous 
" Tripartite Alliance," which was signed by Glyndwr, 
Mortimer, and the Earl of Northumberland at the 
Dean of Bangor's house at Aberdaron on a later oc- 
casion. One regrets that in this particular he is not 
accurate, for the dramatic effect, which as a poet he 
had no reason to resist, is much more telling before 
the field of Shrewsbury than it can be at any sub- 
sequent time. 

The well-known scene, where Glyndwr, Mortimer, 
and Hotspur stand before an outspread map of Eng- 
land, and divide its territory between them, is 
probably to thousands of Englishmen their only dis- 
tinct vision of the Welsh chieftain as an historical 
character. But though this formal indenture, as we 
shall see, was entered into much later, there is no 
doubt that some very similar intention existed even 
now in the minds of the allies. Glyndwr's reward 
was obvious. As to the throne of England, Richard's 
ghost was to be resuscitated for the purpose of creat- 
ing enthusiasm in certain credulous quarters and 
among the mob ; but the young Earl of March was 
the real and natural candidate for the throne. Ed- 
mund Mortimer, however, stood very near to his 
young nephew. He was Hotspur's brother-in-law, 
and who could tell what might happen? He had 
the sympathy of the Welsh, not only because his 
property lay in their country, but because he could 
boast the blood of Llewelyn ap lorwerth, to say 
nothing of his intimate connection with the Welsh 
hero himself. The Earl of Northumberland may 



202 Owen Glyndwr [1403 

have had some understanding with regard to 
northern territory, such as he bargained for in later 
years, but of this we know nothing. It was an ill- 
managed affair in any case, and it is probable that 
the conditions in case of victory were loosely de- 
fined. 

The King had reached Lichfield when the as- 
tounding news burst upon him that he was betrayed, 
and that he had not only to fight Glyndwr and the 
Scotch, but to wrestle with the most powerful of his 
subjects for his crown. Glyndwr was, of course, in 
the secret, but plans had miscarried, or messengers 
had gone astray. Without wearying the reader with 
proofs and dates, it will be sufficient to recall the fact 
that on July 12th Owen was negotiating with Carew, 
and for the next few days his hands and head were 
busily at work before the castle of Dynevor. He 
had at that time no thought of leaving South Wales, 
and this was within four or five days of the great 
fight at Shrewsbury, nearly a hundred miles off, which 
poets and romancists have painted him, of all people, 
as cynically regarding from the safe vantage-point of 
a distant oak tree ! 

Henry, prompt in an emergency and every inch a 
soldier when outside Wales, lost not a moment. He 
had with him but a moderate force, mostly his loyal 
Londoners. The Prince of Wales was near Shrews- 
bury with his recent reinforcements, and quickly 
summoned. Urgent orders were sent out to the 
sheriffs of the home counties, and on Friday, July 
20th, in the incredibly short space of five days, the 
King and Prince entered Shrewsbury with an army 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 203 

of nearer thirty than twenty thousand men. They 
were just in time, for that same evening Hotspur 
(for his father had been detained in Northumberland 
by illness) with a force usually estimated at about 
15,000, arrived at the city gates, only to find to his 
surprise the royal standard floating from the castle 
tower, and the King already in possession. It was 
then late in the afternoon and Hotspur led his army 
to Berwick, a hamlet three miles to the north-west of 
Shrewsbury. Though his father was not present, his 
uncle, Thomas Percy, Earl of Worcester, had lately 
joined him, having stolen away from the side of 
Prince Henry, whose chief adviser he had lately 
been. The Scottish Earl Douglas, who had been 
his prisoner at Homildon, was now his ally, having, 
together with his comrades in misfortune, purchased 
liberty in this doubtless congenial fashion. Percy 
had left Northumberland with 160 followers. His 
force had now grown, as I have already remarked, to 
something like 15,000 men. 

The County Palatine of Chester, always turbulent 
and still faithful to Richard's memory, was most 
strongly represented in his ranks, and its archers 
were among the best in England.* Numbers, too, 
of Glyndwr's supporters from Flint and the Powys 
lordships joined his standard, and Richard's badge 

* It had been made a military Palatinate by William the Con- 
queror, with the special object of coercing North Wales. Having 
lapsed to the Crown in Richard's time, that King had leaned greatly 
in his difficulties on its warlike and independent population. The 
latter with its military efficiency had developed a corresponding 
arrogance and local pride, and Richard had been the last object of 
its provincial devotion. 



204 Owen Glyndwr [1403 

of the White Hart was prominent on their shields 
and tunics. But Hotspur had assuredly reckoned on 
meeting Glyndwr, and now where was he ? He had 
certainly never counted on being stopped by the 
King with a superior force upon the borders of 
Wales. He had now no choice but to fight, and 
even Hotspur's fiery spirit must have drooped for a 
moment when he counted the odds. 

The morning of the 2ist broke and there was still 
no Glyndwr and no alternative but battle ; so, march- 
ing his troops to Heytely or Bull field, a short three 
miles to the north of Shrewsbury on the Wem road, 
he drew them up in order of battle, near the place 
where the church that was raised above their graves 
now stands. 

Hotspur for the moment was depressed. He had 
just discovered that the hamlet where he had spent 
the night was called Berwick, and a soothsayer in the 
North had foretold that he should " fall at Berwick," 
meaning, of course, the famous town upon the Tweed. 
The coincidence affected Percy and showed that if 
Glyndwr was superstitious so also was he ; for, turn- 
ing pale, he said : " I perceive my plough is now 
drawing to its last furrow." But the most lion- 
hearted soldier in England soon shook off such 
craven fears and proceeded to address his men in a 
speech which Holinshed has preserved for us : a spir- 
ited and manly appeal which we must not linger 
over here. The King was curiously slow in moving 
out against his foes, and even when, after noontide, 
he had drawn up his formidable army in their front, 
he gave his faithless friends yet one more chance, 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 205 

sending the Abbot of Shrewsbury to offer them good 
terms even at this eleventh hour, and it was certainly 
not fear that prompted the overture. Hotspur was 
touched and inclined to listen, but his hot-headed or 
mistrustful uncle of Worcester overruled him, even 
going himself to the King's army and using lan- 
guage that made conciliation impossible. It must 
have been well into the afternoon when the King 
threw his mace into the air as a signal for the blood- 
iest battle to open that since the Norman conquest 
had dyed the soil of England. 

With such a wealth of description from various 
authors, more or less contemporary, it is not easy to 
pick out in brief the most salient features of this 
sanguinary fight. It will be sufficient to say that 
the shooting of Percy's Cheshire archers was so ter- 
rific at the opening of the battle that the royal army 
was thrown into confusion and only saved from rout 
by the valour and presence of mind of the King, 
who rallied his shaken troops and bore upon the 
smaller forces of his enemy with irresistible pressure ; 
that the desperate charges of Hotspur and Lord 
Douglas, cleaving lanes through their enemy as they 
sought the King's person, were the leading personal 
features of a fight where all were brave. The valour 
of the young Prince Henry, too, seeing how promin- 
ent a figure he is in our story, must be recorded, 
and how, though badly wounded by an arrow in the 
face, he resisted every effort to drag him from the 
field and still sought the spot where the fight was 
fiercest and the dead thickest. The courage and 
coolness of the King, too, whose crown and kingdom 



2o6 Owen Glyndwr [i403 

were at stake, shone brightly in the deadly melee, 
where his standard was overthrown, its bearer slain, 
and the Constable of England, Lord Stafford, killed 
at his feet. Hotspur, who had fought like a lion 
with a score of knightly opponents, fell at length, 
pierced by a missile from some unknown hand ; and 
before sunset his army was in full flight. The 
slaughter was tremendous, and lasted far into the 
dark hours ; for it is curiously significant that as an 
early moon rose over that bloody field, its face was 
quickly hidden by an eclipse that may well have ex- 
cited the already strained imaginations of so super- 
stitious an age. About four thousand men lay dead 
upon the field, among them two hundred knights 
and gentlemen of Cheshire alone, who had followed 
Percy. The Earl of Worcester and Lord Douglas 
were both captured, the former receiving a traitor's 
death. The corpse of the gallant Hotspur, after 
being buried by a kinsman, was dug up again and 
placed standing upright between two millstones in 
Shrewsbury market-place, that all men might know 
that the fierce Northumberland whelp, the friend of 
Glyndwr, was dead. His quarters were then sent, 
after the manner of the time, to decorate the walls 
of the chief English cities, the honour of exhibiting 
his head over the gates being reserved for York. 

The more illustrious dead were buried in the 
graveyards of Shrewsbury. The rest were, for the 
Under most part, huddled into great pits ad- 

Henry's joining the spot where the old church, that 
pa ronage. ^^^ raised Under Henry's patronage as a 
shrine wherein masses might be said for their souls, 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 207 

still lifts its grey tower amid the quiet Shropshire 
fields.* 

And all this time Glyndwr, in far Carmarthen, was 
in total ignorance of what a chance he had missed, 
and what a calamity had occurred. If Hotspur had 
been better served in his communications, or fate in 
this respect had been kinder, and Glyndwr with 
10,000 men had stood by the Percys* side, how dif- 
ferently might the course of English history have 
run ! It is fortunate for England, beyond a doubt, 
that Hotspur fell at Shrewsbury and that Glyndwr 
was not there, but from the point of view of his after 
reputation, one cannot resist the feeling that a great 
triumph upon the open plains of Shropshire, in an 
historic fight,would have set that seal upon Glyndwr's 
renown which some perhaps may think is wanting. 
Reckless deeds of daring and aggression are more 
picturesque attributes for a popular hero. But 
Glyndwr's fame lies chiefly in the patience of his 
strategy, his self-command, his influence over his 
people, his tireless energy, his strength of will, and 
dogged persistence. He had to do a vast deal with 
small means : to unite a country honeycombed with 



* Battle-field Church, which now serves a small parish, is probably 
the only instance in England of a church erected over the burial-pits 
of a battle for the purpose of saying masses for the victims of a great 
slaughter, and that now does duty as a parish church. The fabric 
has had periods of dilapidation and been much restored, but a good 
part of the walls is original. There was a college originally at- 
tached to it, but all trace of this has disappeared. My first visit to 
the battle-field was in company with the Rev. Dymock Fletcher, 
well known as a Shropshire antiquary, who has published an interest- 
ing pamphlet on this subject. 



2o8 Owen Glyndwr tl403 

alien interests, to fight enemies at home and beyond 
the mountain borders of his small fatherland, and to 
struggle with a nation that within man's memory 
had laid France prostrate at its feet. Private ad- 
ventures and risky experiments he could not afford. 
A great deal of statecraft fell to his share. His 
efforts for Welsh independence could not ultimately 
succeed without allies, and while he was stimulating 
the irregular military resources of the Principality, 
and making things safe there with no gentle hand, 
his mind was of necessity much occupied with the 
men and events that might aid him in the three 
kingdoms and across the seas. His individual prowess 
would depend almost wholly on tradition and the 
odes of his laureate, lolo Goch, if it were not for his 
feat against the Flemings when surrounded by them 
on the Plinlimmon Mountains: 

" Surrounded by the numerous foe, 
Well didst thou deal the unequal blow, 
How terrible thy ashen spear, 
Which shook the bravest heart with fear. 
More horrid than the lightning's glance, 
Flashed the red meteors from thy lance, 
The harbinger of death." 

But Glyndwr's renown, with all its blemishes, rests 
on something more than sword-cuts and lance- 
thrusts. He had been three years in the field, and 
for two of them paramount in Wales. Now, how- 
ever, with the rout and slaughter of Shrewsbury, and 
the immense increase of strength it gave to Henry, a 
crushing blow had surely been struck at the Welsh 
chieftain and his cause. Numbers of Owen's people 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 209 

in Flint and the adjoining lordships, cowed by the 
slaughter of half the gentry of sympathetic Cheshire, 
and their own losses, came in for the pardon that 
was freely offered. The King had a large army, too, 
on the Welsh border, and the moment would seem 
a singularly propitious one for bringing all Wales to 
his feet, while the effect of his tremendous victory 
was yet simmering in men's minds. But Henry was 
too furious with the Percys for cool deliberation. 
The old Earl had not been absent from the field of 
Shrewsbury from disinclination, but from illness; 
and he was now in the North stirring up revolt upon 
all sides. But the ever active King, speeding north- 
ward, checkmated him at York in such a way that 
there was no option for the recusant nobleman but 
to throw himself at his injured prince's feet and crave 
forgiveness. It is to Henry's credit that he par- 
doned his ancient friend. Perhaps he thought the 
blood of two Percys was sufficient for one occasion ; 
so the old Earl rode out of York by the King's side, 
under the festering head of his gallant son, on whom 
he had been mean enough to throw the onus of his 
own faithlessness, and was placed for a time out of 
mischief at Coventry. 

By the time, however, that Henry came south again 
the battle of Shrewsbury, so far as Wales was con- 
cerned, might never have been fought. Glyndwr's 
confidence in the South was so great that he had 
himself gone north to steady the men of Flint and 
the borders in their temporary panic. His mission 
seems to have been so effective that by the time the 

King was back it was the town of Chester and the 
J14 



2IO Owen Glyndwr [1403 

neighbouring castles that were the victims of a panic. 
An edict issued by Prince Henry, who lay recovering 
from his wound at Shrewsbury, ordered the expul- 
sion of every Welshman from the border towns, the 
penalty for return being death. Strenuous efforts 
were again made to stop all trade between England 
and Wales, but it was useless ; a continuous traffic 
in arms and provisions went steadily on, the goods 
being exchanged for cattle and booty of all kinds in 
which Owen's mountain strongholds now abounded. 
On the Welsh side of Chester, hedges and ditches 
were hastily formed as a protection against invasion, 
and watchers were kept stationed night and day 
along the shores of the Dee estuary. 

It was the 8th of September when Henry arrived 
from the north and prepared at Worcester for his 
long-deferred expedition against Glyndwr. He first 
issued formal orders to the Marcher barons to keep 
their castles in readiness against assault and in 
good repair ! — a superfluous warning one would have 
thought, and not devoid of irony, when addressed 
to men who for a year or two had just managed to 
maintain a precarious existence against the waters 
of rebellion that surged all round them. Henry 
was at his very wits' end for money, and all those in 
his interest were feeling the pinch of poverty. It so 
happened that at this juncture the Archbishop of 
Canterbury was attending the Court at Worcester, 
and the sight of his magnificent retinue aroused 
dangerous thoughts in the minds of the barons 
around the King, who had spent so much blood and 
treasure in his service and were now sorely pinched 



1403] The Battle of Shrewsbury 211 

for want of means. The same ideas occurred to 
Henry, if indeed they were not suggested to him, 
and in no uncertain voice he called upon the Church 
for pecuniary aid against Glyndwr. The Archbishop 
took in the situation and sniffed spoliation in the air. 
At the bare idea of such intentions he grew desper- 
ate, and with amazing courage bearded the King 
himself, swearing that the first man who laid a finger 
on church property should find his life no longer 
worth living and his soul for ever damned. The 
King was forced to soothe the excited cleric, who in 
later and calmer moments came to the conclusion 
that it would be perhaps prudent for the Church to 
offer some pecuniary assistance to the Crown. This 
was ultimately done, and the sum contributed was 
about enough to pay the expenses of one of the 
forty or fifty castles that were gradually falling into 
Owen's hands. 

In the meantime, Glyndwr had invaded Hereford- 
shire, penetrating as far as Leominster, and had 
compelled that county to make special terms with 
him and pay heavily for them too. The King, how- 
ever, liad now everything in train for a general ad- 
vance through South Wales. What he did there 
and what he left undone must be reserved for 
another chapter. 



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CHAPTER VII 

OWEN AND THE FRENCH 
1403-1404 

KING Henry's fourth expedition against 
Glyndwr, in spite of all the talk, the pre- 
parations, the hard-wrung money grants, the 
prayers and supplications for aid, will make but 
scant demands upon our space. He spent some 
days at Hereford, issuing orders for stores to be for- 
warded to the hard-pressed castles of South Wales 
from the port of Bristol, though it is obvious that 
only some of them could be relieved by sea. The 
names of a few of these may interest Welshmen. 
They were Llandovery, Crickhoell, Tretower, Aber- 
gavenny, Caerleon, Goodrich, Ewyas, Harold, Usk, 
Caerphilly, Ewyas, Lacy, Paines, Brampton Bryan, 
Lyonshall, Dorston, Manorbier, Stapleton, Kidwelly, 
Lampeter, Brecon, Cardiff, Newport, Milford, Haver- 
ford-west, Pembroke, and Tenby. 

The King left Hereford about the 15th of Sep- 
tember and he was seated a few days later among 
the ruins of Carmarthen, the very centre of the 
recent wars and devastations. Glyndwr and his 



[1403-1404] Owen and the French 213 

people were, of course, nowhere to be seen, nor did 
the King show any disposition to hunt for them. 
He remained about two days at Carmarthen, and 
contented himself with issuing all kinds of orders, 
proclamations, pardons, and confiscations, which 
were for the most so much waste paper. Leaving 
behind him the Earl of Somerset with an inefficient 
garrison and no money to pay them, he then faced 
about, and made the best of his way back again, 
arriving at Hereford within four days. When one 
recalls Edward the First, who considered nearly three 
years of personal residence none too short a time in 
which to establish order in Wales, which was at that 
time by no means so wholly hostile as now, the fee- 
bleness of Henry's Welsh policy strikes one with 
singular force. Had he been his cousin Richard or 
an Edward the Second, a man sluggish in war and a 
slave to luxury, the explanation would be simple 
enough ; but though his Court was extravagant, 
almost culpably so, the King himself was an ener- 
getic, serious-minded soldier, and a man of affairs 
rather than of pleasure. One might well have 
supposed, after the decisive victory at Shrewsbury, 
and the firm grip on the throne which the destruction 
of his domestic enemies gave to the King, that 
Glyndwr's hour had at last come. 

It is almost wearisome to tell the same old tale of 
"scuttle," the same trumpeting forth of orders to 
captains and governors of castles and Marcher 
barons to do, with scant men and means, what their 
master had so conspicuously flinched from with the 
power of England, such as he had made it, at his 



214 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

command. It is needless to say that the King's 
homeward tracks through Wales were obliterated, 
when his back was turned, like those upon sand, be- 
fore the returning tide of Owen and his Welshmen, 
who had swept through Glamorgan and were press- 
ing Cardiff, even while Henry was still travelling 
homewards. He had hardly reached London before 
he received piteous letters from the chiefs of the gar- 
rison that had been left at Carmarthen, begging him 
to send the Duke of York there with strong rein- 
forcements or they were lost men, and protesting 
that in no case could they stay there a day longer 
than the stipulated month, for their men would not 
stand by them. 

Glyndwr had received some sort of consolation 
from the French for the blow struck at his English 
allies on the plains of Shrewsbury. Their corsairs 
had been harrying the shores of England throughout 
the summer. Plymouth, Salcombe, and other places 
had been raided, while flotillas were even now hover- 
ing round the coast of Wales, in the interests of 
Owen. Herefordshire, which had received the long- 
looked-for King with such unbounded joy in Sep- 
tember, and hailed him as its deliverer, was, in 
October, in as bad a plight as ever, for Glyndwr's 
men had again poured over the borders. And 
though the King with his thousands had come and 
gone like a dream, the people of Hereford and 
Gloucester were now glad enough to welcome the 
Duke of York with nine hundred spearmen and 
archers. The Courtenays with a force of Devon- 
shire men had been ordered across the Severn sea 



1404] Owen and the French 215 

to relieve Cardiff, but this they failed in doing, as 
now not only that fortress, but Caerphilly, Newport, 
Caerleon, and Usk fell into Owen's hands. 

The number of men that Glyndwr had with him 
at various times is difficult to estimate. Now and 
then contemporary writers quote the figures. In 
South Wales lately it will be remembered he had 
nearly ten thousand. In Carmarthen at another 
time the number from an equally credible source 
is estimated at thirty thousand. His spearmen were 
better than his archers. The Welsh archers, till the 
Union and the wars with France, had used short 
bows made generally of twisted twigs and formidable 
only at a close range. Archery, however, in its 
highly developed state must have become familiar by 
this time, through the co-operation of the Welsh in 
the French wars. The Welsh spears were excep- 
tionally long, and the men of Merioneth had a special 
reputation for making efficient use of them. They 
were all, however, eminently light troops, though 
equipped with steel caps, breastplates, and often with 
greaves. " In the first attack," says Giraldus Cam- 
brensis, " the Welsh are more than men, in the 
second less than women," and he knew them well. 
But their want of staunchness under repulse, he 
takes care to tell us, was temporary. They were a 
people well-nigh impossible to conquer, he declares, 
from the rapidity with which they recovered from 
defeat and the tenacity with which they returned, 
not always immediately, but sooner or later, to the 
attack, refusing to acknowledge ultimate defeat, 
and desperately attached to liberty. Glyndwr had 



2i6 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

practically no cavalry. Horses were very widely in 
use, perhaps ponies still more so, amid the mediaeval 
Welsh, and their gentry and nobility went mounted 
to war from the earliest times. But it is likely that 
in Wales itself, at any rate, all ranks did their actual 
fighting on foot. 

Of the disposition of Glyndwr's forces and their 
personnel beyond a few of his captains we know little. 
It seems almost certain that the men of the South 
for the most part fought in the south, and those of 
the North in the north. If he had a nucleus of sol- 
diers that followed him in his rapid movements from 
one end of the Principality to the other it was a 
comparatively small one. In every district he had 
trusted leaders who looked after his interests, and on 
his appearance, or at his summons, rallied their fol- 
lowers to battle, and upon their own account made 
the lives of the beleaguered Saxons in their midst 
intolerable. By this time, however, and indeed be- 
fore it, every man who was not a professed subject 
of the descendant of Llewelyn and of Madoc ap 
Griffith, had fled Wales, except those who were 
swelling the population of the ill-victualled and 
closely beleaguered castles. Glyndwr had before 
him many a doughty Anglo-Norman warrior, under 
walls well-nigh impervious to anything but starva- 
tion, whose crumbling shells on many a Welsh head- 
land and hilltop still wake memories of the past and 
stir our fancy. 

Lord Audley was at Llandovery, Sir Henry Scrope 
at Langhame, John Pauncefote held Crickhowl, and 
James Berkeley, Tretower. At Abergavenny was a 



14041 Owen and the French 217 

Beauchamp, at Goodrich a Neville. The splendid 
pile of Caerphilly, whose ruins are the largest in 
Britain, was in the charge of a Chatelaine, Lady Des- 
penser. The noble castle of Manorbier, where Gir- 
aldus was born, in that of Sir John Cornwall, while 
the Earl of Warwick was at Paines, and a Charlton, 
of course, at Welshpool. 

About the same time, some French companies 
were landing in Carmarthen to add further to the 
woes of Henry in Wales ; and for the comfort of 
Glyndwr. The King himself was entering London, 
and to show how little the people of one end of the 
country sometimes realised what was actually hap- 
pening at the other, the citizens, who were always 
his particular friends, gave him quite an enthusi- 
astic reception. It should, however, be remembered 
that the Londoners had been in great force at 
Shrewsbury, and the triumphs of that bloody fight 
were still ringing in men's ears. 

It was not till two years after this that the great 
French effort was made on Owen's behalf, of which we 
shall hear in due course, but even now a few hundred 
Bretons, as already related, had found their way to 
Wales. They flinched from the great Pembroke 
castles and, adventuring upon their own account, 
crept round the coast of Lleyn and made an attempt 
upon Carnarvon. A very short stay before that 
matchless pile of Norman defensive art sufficed 
upon this occasion for the invaders, though soon 
afterwards they landed and joined Glyndwr in its 
investment. The island of Anglesey in the mean- 
time, cut off from the rest of Wales by the castles 



21 8 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

and " English towns " of Conway and Carnarvon, and 
its own almost equally formidable stronghold of 
Beaumaris, had for the moment given in to English 
reinforcements from Chester, and accepted the freely 
offered pardon of the Prince of Wales. It is a sin- 
gular fact that, while so many of Glyndwr's soldiers, 
headed by the Tudors, came from Anglesey and near 
the close of his wars 2000 of its inhabitants were 
actually in arms, no battle or even skirmish took 
place there, so far as we know, during the whole 
period of these operations. 

But Carnarvon, now at this date, January, 1404, 
was as a matter of fact in a lamentable condition as 
regards defenders. The garrison had declined to less 
than thirty men, and there are letters in Sir Henry 
Ellis's collection showing the desperate state to which 
this and other castles were reduced. It seems at the 
first sight incredible that such a handful of men could 
hold so great a fortress against serious attacks. The 
walls and defences of Carnarvon Castle are to-day 
much what they were in the times of Glyndwr. It 
is perhaps almost necessary to walk upon its giddy 
parapets, to climb its lofty towers, in order to grasp 
the hopelessly defiant front such a fortress must 
have shown to those below it before the time of ef- 
fective artillery : the deep moat upon the town side, 
the waters of the harbour a hundred feet below the 
frowning battlements upon the other, the huge gate- 
way from which the portcullis grinned and the up- 
raised drawbridge swung. Twenty-eight men only 
were inside when Owen with a force of his own 
people and the French threw themselves against it. 



1404] Owen and the French 219 

The besiegers had engines, " scowes," and scaling 
ladders, but the handful of defenders were sufficient, 
for the time being at any rate, to hurry from point 
to point, and frustrate all attempts to surmount the 
lofty walls, though these attempts, no doubt, were 
made at many points simultaneously. The Con- 
stable John Bolde was away, but one Parry, his 
deputy, was in command. It was urgent that a mes- 
sage should be sent to Chester, acquainting Venables, 
the governor, of their desperate situation. Not a 
man, as may well be believed, could be spared, so a 
woman was despatched to take the news by word of 
mouth, for few dared in those days to carry letters. 

Harlech was in an equally bad plight, its defenders 
being reduced to twenty-six, but it was as impreg- 
nable as Carnarvon, and much smaller. The garri- 
son had been so mistrustful of their governor's fidel- 
ity that they had locked him up. During January 
their numbers were reduced to sixteen, but they 
still held manfully out against the Welsh under 
Howel Vychan. They eventually succeeded in send- 
ing word across the bay to Criccieth, and to Con- 
way also, of their condition. Conway had been 
urgently petitioning the King and assuring him that 
400 more men would suffice to hold the castles till 
the spring, but that then " when the rebels can lie out 
which they cannot now do " a far greater number 
would be required ; but the King either could not or 
would not understand. Harlech, grim and grey on 
its incomparable rocky perch, required fewer de- 
fenders even than the rest. The sea then swept over 
the half-mile strip of land, the " Morfa Harlech," 



2 20 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

that now lies dry beneath it, and lapped the 
base of the lofty rock on whose summit the great 
Edward's remotest castle still stands defiant of the 
ages.* 

Henry had issued orders that these seagirt castles 
should be looked to by his navy. But Henry's ad- 
mirals seem to have had as little liking for Welsh 
seas as the King himself had for Welsh mountains, 
though happily some Bristol sailors appear to have 
done their best to supply the deficiency. Glyndwr, 
however, was determined to have Harlech without 
loss of further time. Coming there from Carnarvon 
he parleyed with the garrison, and offered terms 
which all but seven accepted. What became of this 
uncompromising minority it would be hard to say, 
but at any rate Owen entered into possession and 
there is good reason to suppose that he planted his 
family here and made his headquarters upon the 
historic rock where Bran the Blessed and a long line 
of less shadowy Welsh chieftains had dwelt, ages 
before the rearing of these Norman towers. 

Later on we hear of his summoning a parliament to 
Harlech, but during this year the first of these legis- 
lative assemblies that he called together met at 
Machynlleth, as being unquestionably a more con- 
venient rendezvous for Welshmen in general. Hither 
came " four persons of sufificient consequence " out of 
each " Cantref " (the old unit of division in Wales), to 
take counsel for future action and to gather around 

* That ships could reach the gate at the foot of the rock of Harlech 
is undoubted. What course the water took or how much of the 
Morfa was actually under water is a matter of uncertainty. 



14041 Owen and the French 221 

the throne, upon which they had now seated a 
crowned Prince of their own race. One of the 
Welsh gentlemen, however, who attended this his- 
toric parliament, came with very different intentions, 
and this was David ap Llewelyn ap Howel, other- 
wise known as Davy Gam, or " squint-eyed Davy," a 
landowner near Brecon and the scion of a family 
distinguished both then and for long afterwards, 
his great-grandfather having fought at Crecy and 
Poitiers. He himself was a short, long-armed man 
with red hair and a cast in his eye. In youth he had 
been compelled to fly from Brecon for killing a 
neighbour, and indeed he seemed to have enjoyed 
all his life a somewhat sinister reputation for reck- 
lessness and daring. Flying to England he was re- 
ceived into the household of John of Gaunt, where 
he grew up side by side with Henry of Bolingbroke 
and was entirely devoted to his service. Henry, 
when he came into power, had restored Gam to his 
property and position in Brecon, and moreover be- 
stowed upon him Crown appointments in South 
Wales. Glyndwr had a brother-in-law named Gam, 
which has given rise to some confusion, but Davy 
was at any rate no relation to the Welsh chieftain, 
though, both having been in Henry's household, it is 
probable they knew each other well. 

Gam had hitherto and naturally been a staunch 
King's man; he now, however, feigned conversion and 
attended the parliament at Machynlleth, not to do 
homage to Owen, but to kill him. The almost cer- 
tain death to which he exposed himself in case of 
success prompts one to something like admiration 



222 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

for so single-minded and fearless an avenger. But 
his intentions were by some means discovered and 
his rash project nipped in the bud. He was seized 
and doomed to the cruel fate which the nature of 
his crime made inevitable. Old friends and relatives, 
however, were in strength at Machynlleth and suc- 
cessfully interceded for his life. Perhaps Glyndwr 
was induced to this act of clemency by the reflection 
that imprisonment for an indefinite period, as prac- 
tised by himself and others at that time, was a worse 
punishment than torture and death to a man of 
spirit. Whether the captive lay in the dungeons of 
Dolbadarn under Snowdon, at Harlech, or in the still 
surviving prison house (Cachardy Owen) at Llan- 
santffraid-Glyndyfrdwy, we do not hear. He prob- 
ably tasted the sweets of all of them and must indeed 
have spent a miserable time in those later years when 
Owen was himself at bay in the mountains and more 
or less of a fugitive. 

But Davy was freed eventually, though only just 
before the final disappearance of Glyndwr, and lived 
to fight at the King's side at Agincourt together 
with his son-in-law Roger Vychan, where both fell 
gloriously on that memorable day. He is said to 
have been knighted on the field while dying and to 
be moreover the original of Shakespeare's Fluellin, 
and to have made the memorable reply to Henry V. 
when returning from a survey of the vast French 
hosts just before the battle: "There are enough to 
kill, enough to take prisoners, and enough to run 
away." 

When next Glynwdr went campaigning through 



1404] Owen and the French 223 

Brecon he took the opportunity of burning his 
would-be murderer's mansion of Cyrnwigen. A 
well-known tradition relates how, while the flames 
were leaping high around the devoted homestead, 
Owen addressed David Gam's bailiff who was gazing 
disconsolately at the scene, in an englyn, which by 
some means has found its way down to posterity 
and is well known in Wales. Seeing that it is the 
only instance we have of so great a patron of bards 
breaking out himself into verse, I venture to print 
it here. There have been various translations ; this 
is one of them : 

" Canst thou a little red man descry, 

Looking around for his dwelling fair ? 
Tell him it under the bank doth lie, 

And its brow the mark of a coal doth bear." 

No special effort was made this spring from 
England to break Glyndwr's power or to relieve the 
castles. While some of Owen's captains were hover- 
ing on the Marches, the chief himself, having dis- 
missed his parliament, moved with his principal 
councillors to Dolgelly. Tradition still points out 
the house at Machynlleth where gathered the first 
and almost the only approach to a parliament that 
ever met in Wales. It stands nearly opposite the 
gates of Plas Machynlleth, an unnoticeable portion 
of the street in fact, a long low building now in part 
adapted to the needs of a private residence, and 
having nothing suggestive about it but the thickness 
of its walls. The chief outcome of this conference 
at Dolgelly of " sufBcient persons " from all over 



224 Owen Glyndwr [14-03- 

Wales, was a much more formal and serious over- 
ture to the French King than the letters of 1402. 
Glyndwr had now fully donned the mantle of 
royalty and wrote to the King of France as a 
brother and an equal, proposing to make an offen- 
sive and defensive alliance with him. 

The ambassadors chosen for the conduct of this 
important business were Griffith Yonge, doctor of 
laws, Owen's Chancellor, and his own brother-in-law, 
John Hanmer. The instrument is in Latin, "Dated 
at Dolgelly on the loth day of May 1404 and in the 
fourth year of our principality," and begins : " Owen 
by the grace of God, Prince of Wales," etc. The 
two Welsh plenipotentiaries crossed the sea without 
misadventure and were received in a most friendly 
manner at Paris by the French King. His repre- 
sentative, the Count de la Marche, signed the treaty 
upon July 14th, together with Hanmer and Yonge, 
at the house of Ferdinand de Corby, Chancellor of 
France, several bishops and other notabilities being 
present. By this intrument Glyndwr and the French 
King entered into a solemn league and covenant to 
assist each other against all the attacks of Henry of 
Lancaster (Charles had never yet recognised him as 
King) and his allies. The Welshmen signed the 
document on behalf of " our illustrious and most 
dread Lord, Owen, Prince of Wales." The treaty 
was ratified on the 12th of January following at 
Llanbadarn near Aberystwith. The seal which 
Glyndwr now used in all his transactions represents 
the hero himself, with a biforked beard, seated on a 
chair, holding a sceptre in his right hand and a 



1404] Owen and the French 225 

globe in his left, and has recently been adopted as 
the corporate arms of Machynlleth. Nor should it 
be overlooked that Owen sent a list of all the chief 
harbours and roads of Wales to Charles, while the 
latter in return loaded the Welsh ambassadors with 
presents for their master, including a gilded helmet, 
a cuirass, and sword, as an earnest of his promised 
help. 

About the same time as the departure of Owen's 
mission to France, he wrote another letter, which is 
extant. It is not of much importance, except as an 
illustration of the confidence he felt at this time in 
his ultimate success. It is addressed to "our dear 
and entirely well beloved Henry Don," urging his 
co-operation, and concluding with the remark: "Their 
sway is ending and victory coming to us, as from 
the first, none could doubt God had so ordered." 

Among other signs of Glyndwr's increased impor- 
tance this year, was the coming over to his cause of 
that Tudor Trevor, Bishop of St. Asaph, who it will 
be remembered had warned the King and his coun- 
cil against despising Owen's peaceful appeal for 
justice against Grey of Ruthin, and urgently pro- 
tested against those ill-fated and misplaced sneers at 
the " barfoots." 

It was Trevor's cathedral at St. Asaph, of course, 
and its precincts, which Glyndwr had so ruthlessly 
burned in 1402. The Bishop had since then been 
not only supported by grants from the English 
exchequer, but had well earned them by much 
serious official work in the King's service. Whether 
his Welsh blood warmed at the prospects of a 



2 26 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

revived Cambrian independence or whether ambi- 
tion was the keynote of his actions, no one may 
know. At any rate it was not want or neglect at 
the hands of the King that drove him back into the 
arms of Owen. The latter gave him a cordial wel- 
come, and it must be said for Trevor that through 
good and ill he proved faithful to his new master's 
cause. Militant clerics were common enough in 
those times. Trevor, with the martial instincts of 
the great border race from which he sprang, and 
whose history is written deep for centuries beside 
the Ceiriog and the Dee, had been in the thick of 
the fight at Shrewsbury beneath the King's banner. 
He now followed Glyndwr both in the council and 
in the field, dying eventually in Paris, a fugitive and 
an exile, in the year 1410. 

All through this spring Owen's followers on the 
borders were making life upon the English side in- 
tolerable. Bonfires were laid ready for the match 
on every hill. The thirty towers and castles that 
guarded Shropshire were helpless to stem the tide. 
The county was again laid waste to the very walls 
of Shrewsbury and many of the population fled to 
other parts of England for a livelihood. Archdeacon 
Kingston at Hereford once again takes up his pen 
and paints a lamentable picture : 

" The Welsh rebels in great numbers have entered 
Archenfield [a division of the county] and there they 
have burnt houses, killed the inhabitants, taken prison- 
ers and ravaged the country to the great dishonour of 
our King and the unsupportable damage of the country. 



1404] Owen and the French 227 

We have often advertised the King that such mischief 
would befall us, we have also now certain information 
that within the next eight days the rebels are resolved to 
make an attack in the March of Wales to its utter ruin, 
if speedy succour be not sent. True it is indeed that 
we have no power to shelter us except that of Lord 
Richard of York and his men, which is far too little to 
defend us ; we implore you to consider this very peril- 
ous and pitiable case and to pray our Sovereign Lord 
that he will come in his Royal person or send some per- 
son with sufficient power to rescue us from the invasion 
of the said rebels. Otherwise we shall be utterly de- 
stroyed, which God forbid ; whoever comes will as we are 
led to believe have to engage in battle, or will have a 
very severe struggle with the rebels. And for God's 
sake remember that honourable and valiant man, the 
Lord Abergavenny [William Beauchamp], who is on the 
very point of destruction if he be not rescued. Written 
in haste at Hereford, June loth," 

A fortnight later the dread of Owen's advance 
was emphasised by Prince Henry himself, who was 
still, in conjunction with the Duke of York, in charge 
of the Welsh wars. 

" Most dread and sovereign Lord and Father, at 
your high command in your other gracious letters, I 
have removed with my small household to the city 
of Worcester, and may it please your Royal High- 
ness to know that the Welsh have made a descent 
on Herefordshire, burning and destroying the county 
with very great force, and with a supply of provisions 
for fifteen days." The Prince goes on to say that 
the Welsh are assembled with all their power, and 



228 Owen Glyndwr [t403- 

to save the county of Hereford he has sent for all 
sorts of considerable persons (mentioned by name) 
to meet him at Worcester. In conjunction with these 
he tells the King he will " do to the utmost of his 
little power," and then comes the inevitable want of 
money and the impossibility of maintaining troops 
in the field or meeting the expenses of the garrisons. 
Another letter from the same hand a few days after- 
wards warned the King still more urgently of the 
pressing danger and declared how impossible it was 
to keep his troops upon the frontier without pay or 
provisions. 

There is no evidence that these strong representa- 
tions brought any satisfaction to the anxious writers. 
The sieges of those castles not yet taken Owen con- 
tinued to prosecute with vigour, while his captains 
continued to desolate the border counties. Glyndwr 
was much too skilful a strategist to undertake a 
serious expedition into England. The cause of 
Richard and Mortimer, which would have been his 
only war-cry, had been shattered, so far as England 
was concerned, at Shrewsbury. All Glyndwr wanted 
was Wales, and at present he virtually possessed it. 
He felt confident now, moreover, of substantial 
assistance from the French King, and when that 
arrived he might perhaps take the initiative seriously 
against Henry on behalf of his son-in-law's family. 
Nor is there any doubt but that he was greatly in- 
debted for the extraordinary position he had 
achieved to the chronic impecuniosity of his enemy, 
and perhaps indeed to his own reputation for magic 
art. Who can say ? 



1404] Owen and the French 229 

One brief and spirited campaign, however, distin- 
guished this summer, or more probably the late 
spring of 1404, for the actual date is uncertain. 
It was undertaken by a strong force which Beau- 
champ, Earl of Warwick, led right through the 
present county of Montgomery. Glyndwr threw 
himself across the Earl's path at Mynydd-cwm-du 
("the black mountain hollow"): a fierce battle en- 
sued, in which the Welsh were defeated and were so 
closely pressed that Owen's banner was captured and 
he himself very nearly taken. Warwick does not 
seem to have followed up his advantage ; on the 
contrary, Glyndwr, rallying his men, followed the 
Earl back to the Herefordshire border whither 
the usual lack of provender had sent him, and there 
turned the tables on his enemy, beating him badly 
in a pitched battle at Craig-y-dorth. The scene of 
this second encounter is on the road between Chep- 
stow and Monmouth, near Trelog common. 

Early in August, 1404, the Shropshire Marches 
were so sorely pressed, and the English defences so 
worn out, that the council were compelled to listen 
to the urgent appeals of the Salopians and grant the 
people of that county leave to make terms with 
Owen on their own account and pay him exemption 
money. The same privilege had also to be extended 
to Edward de Charleton, Lord of Powys, who from 
his " Castle de la Pole " (Welshpool) made a truce 
with the Welsh. It is worthy of note that the 
people of Welshpool, though practically all of Welsh 
blood, stood by their lord and resisted Owen 
throughout the whole of the struggle. For this 



230 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

reason Charleton gave them a fresh charter im- 
mensely enlarging the boundaries of the borough, 
which to this day occupies the unique position of ex- 
tending over something like twenty thousand acres. 

Towards the end of August, King Henry was 
forced once more to turn his attention to Wales. 
The scandal and the danger were growing grievous. 
So he held a council at Tutbury, the minutes of 
which are significant. Eight bishops, eighteen ab- 
bots and priors, nineteen great lords and barons, and 
ninety-six representatives of counties, we are told, 
attended it. The news was here confirmed that the 
French had equipped sixty vessels in the port of 
Harfleur and were about to fill them with soldiers 
and proceed to Owen's assistance. It was decided, 
however, that since the King was not at present able 
to raise an army sufficiently imposing for his high 
estate, he should remain at Tutbury till the 
meeting of Parliament in October. As campaigning 
against Owen even in the summer season had suffi- 
cient horrors for the King, the logic of deferring the 
expedition till November can only be explained by 
sheer lack of money. At least one would have sup- 
posed so if Henry had not burked the whole quest- 
ion, turned his back once more on his lost and 
desolated province, and hastened to the North. 

Prince John, the King's second son, was now 
joined with Prince Henry in the titular Governor- 
ship of the South Wales Marches, and the royal 
brothers were voted two thousand five hundred 
archers and men-at-arms. How many of these they 
got is another story, of which we have no certain 



1404] Owen and the French 231 

knowledge. For a fortnight it was all they could do 
to hold their own as they pushed slowly through to 
the relief of Coity Castle (now Oldcastle Bridgend), 
which was being bravely defended by Sir Alexander 
Berkrolles. 

With the exception of the chronic pressure on the 
still resisting castles, this autumn and winter was 
comparatively quiet in Wales, for the excellent 
reason that Owen had it all his own way. Aberyst- 
with had fallen soon after Harlech ; and those of 
my readers who are familiar with the wave-washed 
situation of the ruins of the later Norman castle 
which still mark the site of the ancient palace of 
Cadwallader, may well wonder why a spot so acces- 
sible from a score of English seaports should have 
been abandoned to its fate. The tower and monas- 
tery of Llanbadarn, too, hard by, became a favourite 
resting-place of Owen's at this time, and it was here 
he ratified this winter his treaty with the King of 
France. But as his family and that of Mortimer 
would appear to have made Harlech their head- 
quarters, and as later on he summoned his second 
parliament to that historic spot, it is more than likely 
that the late autumn and winter months saw the old 
castle the gathering-point of the bards, and the rally- 
ing-place of Owen's faithful captains — a court, in fact, 
and one more adequately housed by far than that 
other one at the mansion on the Dee, since reduced 
to a heap of ashes. As one wanders to-day amid 
the grim walls of Harlech and presses the soft turf 
that centuries of sun and showers and sea mists have 
spread over what was once the floor of its great ban- 



232 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

queting hall, the scenes that it must have witnessed 
in this winter of 1404 are well calculated to stir the 
fancy and captivate the imagination. Death and 
battle have been in ancient times busy enough 
around the rock of Harlech and upon the green 
slopes of the Ardudwy Mountains that from high 
above its grey towers look out upon the sea. From 
the days of Bran the Blessed, the first Christian 
Prince, whose fortress, Twr Bronwen, men say, stood 
upon this matchless site, till those of the fighting 
Maelgwyn, King of Gwynedd, when the coasts of 
Wales were strewn with the victims of plague and 
battle, it was a notable spot. From Colwyn ap 
Tangno, the fountainhead of half the pedigrees in 
North-west Wales, till forty years after Glyndwr's 
time, when, in the Wars of the Roses, David ap 
Sinion made that celebrated defence against Lord 
Herbert which inspired the writing of the stirring 
and immortal march, Harlech was a focus of strife, 
the delight of the bard, the glory of the minstrel. 
Of all Welsh castles, save the fragment of Dinas 
Bran, — and that is indeed saying much, — it is the 
most proudly placed ; and the great medieval fortress, 
still in its exterior so perfect, is well worthy of its site. 
Amid a pile of mountains to the north Snowdon 
lifts its shapely peak ; far westward into the shining 
sea stretches the long arm of West Carnarvon, 
throwing up here and there its shadowy outstanding 
peaks till it fades into the dim horizon behind which 
Ireland lies. As the eye travels southward, the 
lofty headlands of Merioneth give way to the 
fainter capes of Cardigan, and upon the verge of 



1404] Owen and the French 233 

sight in clear weather the wild coast of Pembroke, 
its rugged outline softened by distance, lies low be- 
tween sea and sky. 

Those to whom such things appeal will see much 
that is appropriate in the gathering of Glyndwr, his 
bards, his warriors, his priests, his counsellors, at 
Harlech during this winter which perhaps marked 
the high-tide of his renown. His wife, " the best of 
wives," with the fair Katherine, wife of Mortimer, 
was here, and a crowd of dames, we may be well as- 
sured, whose manors were not at that time, with 
their husbands in the field, the safest of abodes for 
lonely females. Owen's three married daughters 
were not here, for the Scudamores, Monningtons, 
and Crofts, whose names they bore, being Hereford- 
shire men, were all upon the other side. Edmund 
Mortimer, of course, was present, and it is strange 
how a soldier of such repute and of so vigorous 
a stock should have sunk his individuality so ab- 
solutely in that of his masterful father-in-law. 
Glyndwr's two elder sons, now grown to man's es- 
tate, Grififith and Meredith, and his own younger 
brother, Tudor, who was soon to fall, with his 
brother-in-law, John Hanmer, just returned from his 
French mission, complete the family group that 
we may be fairly justified in picturing at Har- 
lech, assembled round the person of their now 
crowned Prince. Rhys Gethin, the victor of Pilleth 
and the terror of the South Wales Marches, was 
probably there, and the two Tudors of Penmynydd, 
whom from first to last several thousand men had 
followed across the Menai from the still unmolested 



234 Owen Glyndwr [1403- 

fields of Anglesey. Yonge the Chancellor, too, fresh 
from France, Llewelyn Bifort, whom, with the con- 
sent of the Avignon Pope, Owen had nominated to 
the wasted estate and the burnt cathedral of Bangor, 
and Bishop Trevor of St. Asaph, most eminent of 
them all, were at Harlech beyond a doubt. Robert 
ap Jevan of Ystymtegid in Eivioneth w^as most 
probably there, with Rhys Dwy, "a great master 
among them," who was executed in London eight 
years later, and last, but by no means least, Owen's 
faithful laureate, Griffith Llwyd, or " lolo Goch," 
who, among all the bards that had tuned their 
voices and their harps to Owen's praise and been 
stirred to ecstasy by his successes, stood first and 
chief. 

Glyndwr had in truth no cause to complain of 
his chief bard, who was a veteran in song when war 
came to stimulate him to patriotic frenzy, and the 
stirring tones in which he sang of his Prince's deeds 
were echoed by every native harp in Wales. 

" Immortal fame shall be thy meed, 
Due to every glorious deed, 
Which latest annals shall record. 
Beloved and victorious Lord, 
Grace, wisdom, valour, all are thine, 
Owain Glyndowerdy divine. 
Meet emblem of a two-edged sword. 
Dreaded in war, in peace adored. 

" Loud fame has told thy gallant deeds, 
In every word a Saxon bleeds. 
Terror and flight together came, 



14041 Owen and the French 235 

Obedient to thy mighty name ; 

Death in the van with ample stride 

Hew'd thee a passage deep and wide, 

Stubborn as steel thy nervous chest 

With more than mortal strength possessed," 

Though a metrical translation may be unsatisfactory 
enough to the Celtic scholar, this rendering vy^ill not 
be v^rithout interest to English readers as giving the 
sense, at any rate, of words addressed to Glyndwr by 
the man nearest to his person. The fourteenth cen- 
tury v^ras the halcyon period of Welsh song ; Dafydd 
ap Gwylim, the greatest of all Welsh love-poets, was 
still alive in Glyndwr's youth, while Gutyn Owen was 
almost a contemporary. Welsh poetry had attuned 
itself, since the Edwardian conquest had brought 
comparative peace in Wales, to gentler and more 
literary themes. The joys of agriculture and country 
life, the happiness of the peasant, the song of birds, 
the murmur of streams, and, above all, the gentler 
passions of human nature had supplanted to a great 
extent the fiercer notes of martial eulogies, the paeans 
of victory, and the plaintive wails over long-past but 
unforgotten defeats. It is strange, too, that this flow 
of song should have signalised a century when the 
profession of a wandering minstrel was in Wales for 
the first time ostracised by law. 

But the old martial minstrelsy was not dead. The 
yearning of the soldier and the man of ancient race 
to emulate the deeds or the supposed deeds of his 
predecessors, and to be the subject after death of 
bardic eulogy in hall or castle, was still strong. It 
helped many a warrior to meet with cheerfulness a 



236 



Owen Glyndwr 



[1403-14041 



bloody death, or with the memory of heroic deeds 
performed to sink with resignation at the hands of 
disease or old age into the cold grave. 





CHAPTER VIII 

WELSH REVERSES 
1405 

GLYNDWR was now, by the lowest estimate, in 
his forty-sixth year. For that period, when 
manhood began early, and old age, if it 
came at all, came quickly, he certainly carried his 
years with remarkable lightness. Who can say, 
however, with what feelings he surveyed his handi- 
work ? From end to end, with almost the sole 
exception of Anglesey and Carnarvonshire and 
western Pembroke, Wales lay desolate and bleed- 
ing. Owen's hands were red, not only with the 
blood of Saxons, but with that of old friends and 
even kinsmen. Red ravage had marked his steps, 
and there were few parts of the country that he had 
not at some time or other crossed and recrossed in 
his desolating marches. Carnarvonshire and west- 
ern Merioneth and the Plinlimmon Mountains were 
full of booty, stock, and valuables brought from 
Norman-Welsh lordships and from beyond the Eng- 
lish border. The admirers of Glyndwr would fain 
believe, and there is something to be said for the 



237 



238 Owen Glyndwr ti405 

theory, that passion and revenge had no part in the 
havoc which the Welsh hero spread throughout his 
native land, but that it was due to a deliberate 
scheme of campaign by which the country was to be 
made not only too hot, but too bare, to hold the 
Saxon. 

It would be waste of words to speculate on mo- 
tives that can never be divulged and schemes that 
have left no witnesses. We have at any rate to face 
tradition, which counts for much. And this places 
Glyndwr in the eyes of most Welshmen, with all his 
ravagings and burnings, on a pedestal above the 
greatest and most patriotic of their older Princes — 
above Llewelyn ap lorwerth, above the last Llew- 
elyn, the son of Gryffydd, above Owen Gwynedd. 
The cool-headed student may be much less enthusi- 
astic. But he will also call to mind the ethics of 
war in those days, and then perhaps remember that 
even in modern conflicts, whose memories stand out 
with conspicuous glory, there has been no very 
great improvement on the methods of Glyndwr. 
The Carolinian who preferred King George to Wash- 
ington and Congress — and King George after all was 
at least no usurper — suffered neither more nor less 
than the Welshmen of Glamorgan or Carmarthen 
or Merioneth who from prudence or inclination pre- 
ferred Bolingbroke to Glyndwr. Wars of this type 
have ever been ferocious. The Anglo-Americans of 
the eighteenth century were a civilised and peaceful 
people ; Glyndwr lived at a time when war was a 
trade, ravage its handmaid, and human life of but 
small account. 



1405] Welsh Reverses 239 

It is quite possible to overestimate the effect upon 
a country in those days of even the most merci- 
less treatment. The torch was not the instrument 
of irreparable loss that it would have been if applied 
with equal freedom only a hundred and fifty years 
later. Outside the feudal castles and the great 
ecclesiastical foundations, there were few permanent 
structures of much value either in England or Wales. 
It was late in the century with which we are dealing 
before the manor-house and grange of the yeoman or 
country gentleman became buildings of the style 
with which careless fancy is apt to associate their 
names. It is salutary sometimes to leave the ordin- 
ary paths of history and refresh one's mind with 
the domestic realities of olden days as they are 
shown to us by writers who have given their atten- 
tion to such humble but helpful details. The ordin- 
ary English manor-house of Glyndwr's time was a 
plain wooden building,* with an escape-hole in the 
thatched roof for the smoke, a floor covered with 
rushes, and filthy from lack of change, with bare 
boards laid on rude supports doing duty as tables. 
A little tapestry sometimes relieved the crudeness of 
the bare interior where such a crowd of human be- 
ings often gathered together. Here and there an 
important person built for himself a compromise be- 
tween a manor and a castle, Glyndwr himself being 
an instance to the point. The average manor-houses 



* Mr. Denton, in his England of the Fifteenth Century, allows no 
more than four, and usually only three rooms, to an average manor- 
house : one for eating in, with a second, and perhaps a third, for 
sleeping ; a fire in the centre of the first. 



240 Owen Glyndwr ti405 

of Wales, the abodes of the native gentry, were cer- 
tainly no more, probably less, luxurious, and not of- 
ten — though some were even then — built of stone. 
As for the peasantry, their dwellings in either the 
England or Wales of that time were mere huts 
of mud, wood, or wattle, and were often, no doubt, 
not worth the trouble of destroying. 

The Welsh of those days, unlike the English, did 
not group themselves in villages. Each man not an 
actual servant, whether he were gentleman or small 
yeoman, lived apart upon his property or holding. 
If we eliminate the present towns, the country must 
have been in most parts almost as thickly populated 
as it is now. A valuable survival, known as the 
Record of Carnarvon, a sort of local doomsday book, 
dating from the thirteenth century, may be seen to- 
day, and it gives very detailed information as to 
the persons, manors, and freeholds of that country, 
and some idea of how well peopled for the times 
was even the wildest part of wild Wales. Prince 
Henry, it will be remembered, speaks of the Vale of 
Edeyrnion as a fine and populous country. Giraldus 
Cambrensis, in his graphic account of his tour with 
Archbishop Baldwin in the twelfth century, gives the 
same impression. Still the destruction of such build- 
ings as the mass of its people lived in, even if they 
were destroyed, was of no vital consequence. The 
loss of a year's crop was not irreparable, particularly 
in a country where sheep and cattle, which could 
often, be driven away, were the chief assets of rural 
life. Glyndwr, to be sure, did what few other makers 
of war, even in Wales, had done, for he destroyed 



1405] Welsh Reverses 241 

some of the chief ecclesiastical buildings. He burnt, 
moreover, several of the small towns and dismantled 
many castles. " Deflower'd by Glindor " is a re- 
mark frequently in the mouth of old Leland as he 
went on his immortal survey not much more than a 
hundred years later. 

The term " rebel," as applied to Glyndwr and 
those Welshmen who followed him, is more con- 
venient than logical. However bad a king Richard 
may have been, the Welsh had never wavered in 
their allegiance to him. However excellent a mon- 
arch Henry might have made if he had been given 
the chance, he was at least an usurper, |and a breaker 
of his word. London and parts of England had 
welcomed him to the throne. The Percys and in- 
numerable other Englishmen who then and at vari- 
ous other times conspired against him were rebels 
beyond a doubt. But the Welsh had never even 
been consulted in the coup d'etat by which he seized 
the crown. They had never recognised him as king 
nor sworn allegiance. To them he was simply an 
usurper and the almost certain assassin of their late 
King. If Richard were alive, then Henry could not 
be their lawful sovereign. If, on the other hand, he 
had been done to death, which either directly or in- 
directly he surely had been, then the boy Earl of 
March, as all the world knew, should be on the 
throne. Henry of Monmouth, too, being the son of 
an usurper, could not possibly be Prince of Wales. 
The place was vacant, and the opportunity for elect- 
ing one of their own race and blood was too good to 
be missed. Whatever historians may choose to call 

z6 



242 Owen Glyndwr [1405 

Glyndwr, he was logically no rebel in a period when 
allegiance was almost wholly a personal matter. His 
enemies, whom he hunted out of Wales or pent up 
in their castles, were, on the other hand, from his 
point of view, rebels and traitors in recognising the 
authority and protection of an usurper. The Welsh 
people owed no allegiance to the English, but to the 
King of England and Wales, to whom for the pro- 
tection of the isle of Britain, as the old tradition 
still ran, they paid a sum of ;^6o,oc)0 a year. In 
their eyes, as in those of many persons in England 
and of most in Europe, Henry was Henry of Lan- 
caster, not King of England. The Welsh tribute, it 
is hardly necessary to say, had dwindled, since the 
rising of Glyndwr, to insignificant proportions, while 
the war expenses it entailed, together with this loss 
of income, was one of the chief causes of that im- 
pecuniosity which prevented Henry from ever really 
showing of what stuff as a ruler he was made. 

The chief incident of the early part of the year 
1405 was a nearly successful plot to carry off from 
the King's keeping the young Earl of March, the 
rightful heir to the crown, and his brother. Being 
nephews of Sir Edmund Mortimer, the attempt to 
bring them to Glyndwr's headquarters in Wales and 
to the protection of their uncle was a natural one. 
The King, who was spending Christmas at Eltham, 
had left the boys behind him at Windsor, under the 
charge of Hugh de Waterton, Constable of the 
Castle. Their domestic guardian was the widow of 
the Lord Despencer and sister of the Duke of York, 
who at this time, it will be remembered, was in joint 



1405] Welsh Reverses 243 

charge with Prince Henry of Welsh affairs. The 
Despencers had been Norman-Welsh barons for 
some generations, their interests at this time lying 
for the most part in what is now Monmouthshire, 
and though ostensibly hostile, they had old ties of 
blood and propinquity with the house of Mortimer. 
This Christmas witnessed one of the many plots 
against the King's life, but with these we have nothing 
to do, except in so far that the moment was regarded 
as being a favourable one for making an effort to get 
hold of the two royal boys. How unstable were 
Henry's friends for the most part may be gathered 
from the fact that the Duke of York, his trusted repre- 
sentative in Wales, was himself privy to the scheme. 
To Lady Despencer was entrusted the chief part 
in this dangerous work. As sister to the Duke of 
York, she was in the King's eyes above all suspicion. 
When the latter had left Windsor for Eltham she 
caused a locksmith secretly to make false keys, and 
by means of these, with the connivance of some serv- 
ants, she contrived to get her two wards safely out of 
the castle precincts, taking with her at the same time 
her own son. Horses and attendants were ready in 
waiting, and the whole party pushed for the West 
with all the expedition of which they were capable. 
They had passed through Berkshire before the King 
heard the news of their escape. When it reached 
him, however, no time was lost. Sending out swift 
messengers upon the track of the fugitives he him- 
self at once hastened to Windsor. The pursuers 
were just in time and overtook the illustrious fugi- 
tives in Gloucestershire within a day's ride of the 



244 Owen Glyndwr [1405 

security which Mortimer and Glyndwr's people were 
waiting to afford them in Wales. A lively brush, 
not without slaughter on both sides, signalised the 
meeting, but the lady and the boys were captured 
and conveyed back to London. Lady Despencer 
then revealed the plot to murder the King, denounc- 
ing her brother, the Duke of York, as a leading con- 
spirator. This was not a sisterly action, and the 
Duke loudly denied all knowledge of such dastardly 
intentions. At this the lady, whose private reputa- 
tion was not all that it should have been, waxed in- 
dignant and clamorously demanded a champion to 
maintain her declaration with lance and sword. 
Whereupon a gentleman named William Maidstone 
flung down his glove to the Duke in the very 
presence of the King. The challenge was accepted, 
but, the Duke being apparently of corpulent build 
and the challenger both at a physical advantage and 
of no distinction, the romantic combat never took 
place. Perhaps the King wished to get the Duke 
into his hands without loss of time, for he seized 
him and sent him to the Tower instead of into the 
lists. He was soon, however, as an illustration of 
how forgiving Henry could at times be, pardoned 
and reinstated to the full in all his honours. His 
sister, however, whose tenants were nearly all sup- 
porters of Glyndwr, was stripped of her property. 
But they, too, were eventually restored, and their 
feudal superior, who made no little stir in her time, 
lies buried amid the ruins of the old abbey at Read- 
ing. The unfortunate locksmith who had made the 
keys had both his hands chopped off. 



1405] Welsh Reverses 245 

The castles of Caerleon, Caerphilly, Newport, and 
Usk had fallen, and in the manuscripts collected by 
lolo Morganwg (Edward Williams), who flourished in 
the last century, an apparently contemporaneous 
though anonymous writer, has somewhat to say about 
Glyndwr in Morganwg or Glamorgan. He tells how 
Owen came to Cardiff, " destroyed it and won the 
castle," demolishing at the same time the castles of 
Penllan, Llandochau, Flemington, Dunraven of the 
Butlers, Tal-y-fan, Llanblethian, Llangeinor, Male- 
fant, and Penmark, and burning many villages the 
men of which would not join him. " The country 
people collected round him with one accord and de- 
molished houses and castles innumerable, laid waste 
and quite fenceless the lands, and gave them in com- 
mon to all." The manuscript goes on to say how 
Glyndwr " took away from the rich and powerful and 
distributed the plunder among the weak and poor." 
Many of the higher orders of chieftains had to fly to 
England under the protection and support of the 
King. A bloody battle took place at Bryn Owen 
(Stallingdown) near Cowbridge, between Glyndwr 
and the King's men. The latter were put to flight 
after eighteen hours' hard fighting, " during which the 
blood was up to the horses' fetlocks at Pant-y-wenol, 
that separates both ends of the mountain." Here be- 
yond a doubt was a fulfilment of one of the dread 
portents that attended Owen's birth, when the horses, 
it will be remembered, in his father's stable were 
found standing with the blood running over their 
feet. There is no date to this anonymous but evid- 
ently sincere and suggestive narrative, or rather the 



246 Owen Gly7idwr [1405 

date assigned to the event is evidently an error. 
The matters here spoken of belong to 1403, or 1404, 
in all probability, though they can only be inserted 
parenthetically as one of those scraps of local Welsh 
testimony from the period itself that have an interest 
of their own. 

The year 1405 opened with reports that the re- 
nowned Rhys Gethin was to cross the English bor- 
der with a large force. Prince Henry, now eighteen 
years of age, with an experience of war under dififi- 
culties and of carking cares of state such as has 
fallen to the lot of few men so young, prepared to 
make ready for him. Short of men and money, the 
young soldier had long begun to show of what 
mettle he was made and to give evidence of the ability 
that was eventually to do more to arrest the resist- 
ance of Glyndwr than all the combined efforts of 
Lord Marchers and their royal master. 

Rumour on this occasion proved true, for Rhys, 
passing through Glamorgan with eight thousand men 
and skirting Abergavenny, attacked the border town 
of Grosmont, in the valley of the Monnow, and burnt 
it to the ground. Grosmont had hitherto been a 
flourishing place, but it never recovered from the 
blow then dealt it. In Camden's time the remains of 
streets and causeways could be traced beneath the 
turf of the surrounding fields in evidence of its 
vanished glories. To-day it is a picturesque and 
peaceful village crowning a high ridge, from which 
a glorious prospect can be enjoyed of the vale of the 
Monnow with the sparkling river hurrying down- 
wards between lofty hills to meet the Wye. A 



1405] Welsh Reverses 247 

simple street, and that a short one, is all that remains, 
while an old town hall speaks eloquently of its de- 
parted importance. A cruciform church of great age 
with an octagonal tower and spire springing from the 
centre lends force to the tradition of Grosmont's 
former glories. Above all, the walls of the Norman 
castle, whence issued Prince Henry's gallant band, 
still stand hard by the village, their reddish stone- 
work half hidden amid a mass of ivy and the foliage 
of embowering trees ; the moat half full of the leaves 
of many autumns, the ramparts green with the 
turf of ages ; a quiet enough spot now but for the 
song of birds and the tumble of the river upon its 
rocks three hundred feet below. It was here that 
Glyndwr's forces met with their first serious disaster 
upon the border, for the Prince, together with Gilbert 
Talbot and Sir Edward Newport, sallying out of the 
castle, attacked Rhys Gethin and inflicted upon the 
Welsh a severe and bloody defeat, completely rout- 
ing them with a loss of eight hundred men left dead 
upon the field. It is especially stated in some accounts 
that no quarter was given, and only one prisoner taken 
alive and spared for ransom, of whom Prince Henry, 
in a letter to his father which is worth transcribing, 
speaks as " a great chieftain." 

" My most redoubted and most Sovereign Lord and 
father, I sincerely pray that God will graciously show His 
miraculous aid towards you in all places, praised be He 
in all His works, for on Wednesday the eleventh of this 
present month of March, your rebels of the parts of 
Glamorgan, Morgannok, Usk, Netherwent, and Over- 
went, assembled to the number of eight thousand 



248 Owen Glyndwr [i40« 

men, according to their own account, and they went on 
the same Wednesday, in the morning, and burnt a part 
of your town of Grossmont within your Lordship of 
Monmouth and Jennoia \sic\. Presently went out my well 
beloved cousin the Lord Talbot and the small body of 
my household, and with them joined your faithful and 
valiant knights William Newport and John Greindor, the 
which formed but a small power in the whole ; but true 
it is indeed that victory is not in the multitude of people, 
and this was well proved there, but in the power of God, 
and there by the aid of the blessed Trinity, your people 
gained the field, and vanquished all the said rebels, and 
slew of them by fair account in field, by the time of their 
return from the pursuit, some say eight hundred, 
others a thousand, being questioned upon pain of 
death ; nevertheless whether it were one or the other 
I will not contend, and to inform you fully of all that has 
been done, I send you a person worthy of credit therein, 
my faithful servant the bearer of this letter, who was at 
the engagement and performed his duty well, as he has 
always done. And such amends has God ordained you 
for the burning of your houses in your aforesaid town, 
and of prisoners were none taken except one, a great chief 
among them, whom I would have sent to you but he can- 
not yet ride at ease. 

" Written at Hereford the said Wednesday at night. 
'* Your most humble and obedient son, 

" Henry." 

Glyndwr, as soon as he heard of the disaster on the 
Monnovir, pushed up fresh forces under his brother 
Tudor to meet the fugitives from Grosmont, with 
a view to wipe out, if possible, that crushing defeat. 
What strength they got, if any, from Rhys Gethin's 



1405] Welsh Reverses 249 

scattered army there is no evidence, but in less than 
a week they encountered the Prince himself advanc- 
ing into Wales with a considerable force, and at 
Mynydd-y-Pwll-Melyn, in Brecon, received a defeat 
more calamitous than even that of Grosmont. Fif- 
teen hundred of the Welsh were killed or taken pris- 
oners. Among the slain was Owen's brother Tudor 
himself ; and so like the chief was he in face and 
form that for some time there was much rejoicing, 
and the news was bruited about that the dreaded 
Glyndwr was in truth dead. The spirits of the Eng- 
lish were sadly damped when the absence of a wart 
under the left eye, a distinguishing mark of Glyndwr, 
proclaimed that their joy was premature, and that it 
was the dead face of his younger brother on which 
they were gazing. Among the prisoners, however, 
was his son Gryffydd, who was sent by the Prince to 
London and confined in the Tower, statements of 
money allowed for his maintenance there appearing 
from time to time on the Rolls. Gryffydd's (Grififin 
he is there called) fellow-prisoner is Owen ap Gryf- 
fydd, the son probably of the valiant Cardiganshire 
gentleman whom Henry quartered in 1402. A year 
later the young King of Scotland, whose life was 
safer there, no doubt, than in his own country, was the 
companion of Glyndwr's son. The lolo manuscript 
before mentioned tells us : 

" In 1405 a bloody battle attended with great slaugh- 
ter that in severity was scarcely ever exceeded in Wales 
took place on Pwll Melin; Gryffyth ap Owen and his 
men were taken and many of them imprisoned, but 



250 Owen Glyndwr [1405 

many were put to death when captured, whereupon all 
Glamorgan turned Saxon except a small number who 
followed their lord to North Wales." 

These two severe defeats were a great blow to 
Owen's prestige. They caused numbers of his adher- 
ents in South Wales to fall away and to seek that 
pardon which the King, to do him justice, was at all 
times very free in extending to Welshmen. Indeed, 
it would almost seem as if he himself secretly recog- 
nised the fact that they had much justice on their 
side and were rebels rather in name than in actual 
fact. 

About the time of the second of these two victo- 
ries over the Welsh, the King, encouraged no doubt 
by such successes, began making great preparations 
for a personal expedition against Glyndwr. His ac- 
tivity in other parts, for the North was always sim- 
mering, had been prodigious. He now arrived at 
Hereford early in May, full of determination to sup- 
port in person the zeal so lately aroused in his hard- 
worked constables and lieutenants, and once and for 
all to suppress the accursed magician who for five 
years had so entirely got the better of him. 

But Glyndwr previous to these defeats had sent 
emissaries to the North. Three of his immediate 
councillors were in Northumberland in secret con- 
clave with its crafty and ill-advised Earl. The King, 
it will be remembered, had not only forgiven Percy 
but had restored to him all his confiscated estates. 
That he was prepared again to risk the substance for 
the shadow (to say nothing of committing an act of 



1405] Welsh Reverses 251 

ingratitude that even for those days was indecent) 
is conclusive evidence that his dead son, Hotspur, was 
not the evil genius his father had with poor spirit 
represented him to be when craving mercy from the 
King. Glyndwr, however, had nothing to do with 
the old Earl's conscience when for the second time 
he seemed anxious for an alliance. Bishop Trevor, 
with Bifort, Glyndwr's Bishop of Bangor, and David 
Daron, Dean of Bangor, were now all in the North 
intriguing with Northumberland. In the early days 
of the Welsh rising Glyndwr seemed to have some 
personal and even sentimental leaning towards the 
Percys. There was nothing of that, however, in his 
present attitude, which was purely a business one, 
seeing that the French, as he thought, and rightly 
so, were on the point of coming to his assistance, 
and the North about to rise in arms against Henry. 
Even the loss of men and of his own prestige, en- 
tailed by the defeats of Grosmont and PwU-Melyn 
and the falling away of Glamorgan, might be much 
more than counterbalanced. The first mutterings of 
the outbreak came from York, but they were loud 
enough to pull the King up at Hereford and start 
him at full speed for Yorkshire. Once more his 
sorely tried servants in Wales had to do as best they 
could without him, though some compensation in 
the way of men and supplies was sent to their re- 
lief. It is not within my province to follow Henry's 
operations this summer in the North, but it is neces- 
sary to our narrative to state that Percy escaped 
from York only just in time, having refused the 
really magnanimous conditions of pardon that the 



252 Owen GlyndwH [hos 
^ 

King sent on to him. He fled tc^ Scotland, taking 
with him his fellow-conspirator, Earl Bardolph, and 
Glyndwr's three emissaries, Trevoi:,jiBifort, and David 
Daron. Another Welshman of Olv^en's party, how- 
ever, who has not been hitherto njsntioned. Sir John 
Grififith, was caught at York andjexecuted. Many 
persons besides Percy were implicated in the plot. 
Archbishop Scrope for one, wh^e execution, with 
many accompanying indignities, seiTt a thrill of hor- 
ror throughout Britain and Europe; Judge Gas- 
coine's courageous refusal to sentence the prelate 
being, of course, one of the familiar incidents of the 
reign. For the second time the Percy estates were 
confiscated, while the suppression of the revolt and 
the punishment of the rebels kept the King linger- 
ing for a long time in the North. At the end of 
July he received the serious news that the French 
had landed in South Wales, and, hurrying southward, 
reached Worcester about the loth of August, to 
find Glyndwr with some ten thousand Welshmen and 
nearly half as many French within nine miles of that 
city. 

We must now return to Wales and to the earlier 
part of the summer, that we may learn how this 
transformation came about within so short a time. 
After Glyndwr's two defeats in March, and the sub- 
sequent panic among the men of Glamorgan and 
no doubt also among those of Gwent and parts of 
Brycheiniog, the chieftain himself with a following 
of tried and still trusty men went to North Wales. 
Welsh historians, following one another, paint most 
dismal pictures of Owen this summer, represent- 



1405] Welsh Reverses 253 

ing him as a solitary wanderer, travelling incognito 
about the country, sometimes alone, sometimes 
with a handful of faithful followers, now lurking in 
friends' houses, now hiding in mountain caverns, but 
always dogged by relentless foes. All these things 
he did in after years with sufficient tenacity to 
satisfy the most enthusiastic lover of romance. That 
his condition can have come to such a pass in the 
summer of 1405 is too manifestly absurd to be worth 
discussion. He had received, it is true, a blow 
severe enough to discourage the localities near 
which it happened, and probably to frighten a good 
many of his friends in other parts. It is possible, 
too, some may have sued secretly for pardon. But 
when we consider that in March all Wales except 
certain castles was faithful, and that his troops were 
attacking the English border when repulsed ; that in 
May the King and his lieutenants were only prepar- 
ing to invade Wales ; that no operations of moment 
were so far as we know executed during the early 
summer against the Welsh ; and finally that in July 
Glyndwr met the French at Tenby with ten thou- 
sand men behind him, it is quite incredible that 1405 
can have been the season in which he spent months 
as an outcast and a wanderer. We may, I think, take 
it as certain that Glyndwr's star had not yet sensibly 
declined, and that what he had recently lost might 
well be considered as more than cancelled by the ap- 
pearance in Milford Bay of 140 French ships full of 
soldiers. 

While the coming of the French was still an uncer- 
tainty, it is probable that there was considerable 



2 54 Owen Glyndwr [1405 

depression even among Owen's immediate followers. 
But neither he nor they were cherishing it in caves 
and solitudes. On the contrary, another parhament, 
similarly constituted to the former one at Machyn- 
lleth, was summoned to Harlech. Of the result of 
its deliberations we know nothing, but a letter of the 
period suggests that Glyndwr was not wholly with- 
out thought of making terms in case of the non-ar- 
rival of the French. At the same time this is not 
quite in keeping with the stubborn resistance that 
in after years, when all hope had fled, he maintained 
with such heroic fortitude. Two of the county re- 
presentatives, at any rate, who came to Harlech on 
this occasion were trimmers or worse. David Whit- 
more and levan ap Meredydd were supposed to re- 
present his interests in Flint, but we are told that, 
before departing for the West, they held private 
communication with Sir John Stanley, who was in 
charge of the important castle of Hope for the King. 
To be brief, they went as spies rather than as sup- 
porters, and with the intention of keeping the Eng- 
lish informed of what took place. But it was now 
already summer and while this season was still at its 
height, the event which Glyndwr was hoping and 
looking for took place. 

The French had made many attempts in the pre- 
ceding year to reach Wales ; a few, as we know, 
touched the coast, and lent some slight assistance at 
Carnarvon and elsewhere. Now, however, a more 
successful effort and upon an infinitely larger scale 
was made, and 140 ships found their way from 
Brest to Milford without any mishap save the loss of 



1405] Welsh Reverses 255 

their horses from lack of fresh water. The number 
of troops carried by this fleet is variously estimated 
at from about 3000 to 12,000 men. Madame De 
Lussan, the French historian of the period, is very 
definite so far as she goes, for without mentioning the 
grand total she states that there were among them 
800 men-at-arms, 600 crossbows, and 1200 foot- 
soldiers, all picked troops. But then, again, the 
French " man-at-arms " of the period included a 
squire, a page, and three archers, so that the entire 
French force probably numbered from 4000 to 5000 
men. The command was nominally in the hands of 
Jean de Rieux, Marshal of France, but the Sire de 
Hugueville was the leading spirit, not only in the in- 
ception but also in the conduct of the enterprise. He 
had actually sold to the Church his large estate of 
Agencourt near Montdidier, and devoted the pro- 
ceeds to the adventure which he had so much at 
heart. There seems at any rate to have been no 
stint of money in the undertaking, for it is particu- 
larly noted what bravery of apparel and fine trap- 
pings distinguished this French army when it 
landed at Milford Haven. The fleet left Brest on 
July 22nd and arrived early in August in excellent 
condition, with the exception, as I have said, of the 
horses, which had all been thrown overboard. Glyn- 
dwr in the meantime had heard that the French were 
on the sea, and, moving down into Pembrokeshire 
with 10,000 men, he joined forces with them almost 
immediately upon their landing. 

There was no time to be lost and the united armies 
turned first to Haverford-west, an Anglo-Flemish 



256 Owen Glyndwr [1405 

centre of some importance. The town was soon 
taken and burnt, but the great Norman castle proved 
altogether too hard a task even for so large a force. 
So, falling back, Glyndwr and his French allies 
marched to Tenby, laying waste the Flemish settle- 
ments, though they had to look helplessly on while 
an English fleet attacked the French ships and de- 
stroyed fifteen of them. Thence under Glyndwr's 
guidance the army moved on to Carmarthen, which 
surrendered without much resistance. Glamorgan, 
it will be remembered, had fallen away from its 
allegiance to the Welsh cause, so Glyndwr took it on 
his route towards England and gave the backsliders 
of that unfortunate county some experience of his 
relentless methods. Passing on thence through 
Herefordshire in a fashion of which we know nothing 
but may readily guess, the allied forces entered 
Worcestershire and arrived within nine miles of the 
capital of that county just as King Henry reached 
it. 

As early as the beginning of July, when the King 
first heard of the intended French invasion, he had 
issued proclamation to the sheriffs of several coun- 
ties to be in readiness with their forces, and it was 
these that must now have been his chief support at 
Worcester. On his way south he had issued another 
summons to the forces of Herefordshire and the lower 
counties to muster at the city of Hereford. It was 
now about the middle of August, and without more 
delay he marched his army out from Worcester to 
meet the formidable combination that had penetrated 
so far into his kingdom. 



1405] Welsh Reverses 257 

The spot where Glyndwr and Hugueville en- 
camped their forces was an old British fort on the 
summit of Woodbury hill and is still known as 
Owen's camp. Pennant visited it and made care- 
ful notes and observations. It covers, he says, 
about twenty-seven acres and is surrounded by 
a single foss. The hill itself is lofty and of an oblong 
form. One end is connected with the Abberly hills, 
which, with this one of Woodbury, form a crescent, 
the hollow between constituting an ideal arena for a 
battle-ground. 

When the King arrived he proceeded to take up 
his position on the northern ridge, and the two armies 
lay for eight days, both so admirably placed that each 
feared to give advantage to the other by moving out 
and risking so great a stake in the gage of battle. 
Skirmishing, however, went on daily in the valley be- 
low. The brave spirits of either army descended into 
the arena and performed individual deeds of arms 
between and in sight of both camps. " They had 
a fine slope," says Pennant, " to run down, the 
Welsh having a hollowed way as if formed especially 
for the purpose." 

Some four or five hundred men in all fell during 

this week of desultory skirmishing, including some 

French knights of note. One might well have 

looked, at this crisis, for some decisive and fierce 

fight like that of Shrewsbury, which should live in 

history. Never had Glyndwr penetrated so far into 

Saxon territory ; never before had ten thousand 

Welshmen threatened Worcester as invaders ; never 

since England had become a united country had a 
17 



258 Owen Glyndwr [1405 

hostile French army sat down in its very heart as 
this one was now doing. 

But the King at any rate showed his wisdom in 
not venturing on a battle. He had ample provisions 
behind him and was gathering strength. Glyndwr 
and Hugueville, on the other hand, had wasted the 
country on their route, and they were running short 
of food. Yet even if Glyndwr had struck at once 
and gained a victory, it is quite certain that with his 
friends in the North already crushed he would not 
have been able with what was left of his fifteen 
thousand or so Welsh and French, to affect in any 
way the fortunes of England by merely capturing 
Worcester, and would have himself been in immin- 
ent danger. Moreover, as the King clung to the 
top of the hill and had perhaps nearly as many men 
with him as the enemy, the risk attending an attack 
would have been still greater. The Franco-Welsh 
army, too, had a good deal of booty among them, 
which to most of the individuals composing it was 
probably a leading item for consideration. 

When his enemies struck their camp and com- 
menced their backward march to Wales, the King 
essayed to follow them, and found it no easy task in 
a region already twice traversed by a hungry and 
hostile army. He took some provisions with him, 
but after eighteen waggon-loads of these had been 
captured by Glyndwr's hungry soldiers he gave up 
his barren attempts to harass their rapid march. 
Hall's account of this campaign does not tally with 
the account of the invaders, as is perhaps natural, 
and he probably drew to some extent on his imagin- 



1405] Welsh Reverses 259 

ation when he described Henry's pursuit in such 
curiously quaint language : 

" From hills to dales," he writes, " from dales to 
woodes, from woodes to marshes, and yet he could 
never have them at an advantage. A worlde it was to 
see his quotidian removings, his busy and painful wan- 
derings, his troublesome and uncertayne abiding, his 
continual mocian, his daily peregrenacion in the desert 
fells and craggy mountains of that barrenne infertile and 
depopulate country." 

But the Franco- Welsh army was soon deep in the 
heart of Wales, and Henry, having given up the 
pursuit in much more summary fashion than Hall 
would have us believe in the face of dates, was con- 
centrating his forces at Hereford. Prince Henry 
had already done something to harass the march of 
the Welsh through Monmouth. Sir John Grendor 
was negotiating with Owen's supporters in the valley 
of the Usk. Sir John Berkrolles still held the great 
castle of Coity with the utmost difificulty, and the 
Bristol captains who had enabled Harlech to hold 
out so long were now ordered down the Bristol 
channel with supplies for the still beleaguered garri- 
sons of South Wales. 

On September loth Henry with a large force com- 
menced his fifth invasion of Wales. The reader, 
wearied no doubt by the chronicle of these futile en- 
deavours, might now well look for some tangible 
result, some crushing blow. There is nothing, how- 
ever, but the old, old story to tell. The King en- 
tered Glamorgan and succeeded in relieving the 



26o Owen Glyndwr [i405 

single castle of Coity ; he then turned tail, and the 
Welsh at once, as in every case but one, when there 
was no need for it, sprang upon his back. Besides 
his spears and arrows Glyndwr once more 
worked with his magic wand. The heavens de- 
scended and the floods came and soaked and buffeted 
the hapless monarch and his still more wretched and 
ill-provisioned troops. Every river ran bank-high 
and every brook was in flood ; and the clumsy carts 
that carried the commissariat were captured by 
Glyndwr's men or whirled away in the rapids. The 
old story of 1402 was repeated in the autumn of 
1405. The royal army on their return had to cross 
the valley of the Rhondda, where the national cause, 
though more than once suppressed, was always vigor- 
ous and responded to its famous war-cry, " Cadwgan, 
whet thy battle-axe." This valley runs from the west- 
ward into theTaff at Pontypridd and is now astir with 
the hum of grimy industry and bright with the flare 
of forges. It was then a hive of fighting stock-farm- 
ers fired with a great enthusiasm for Glyndwr. 

** There was a certain Cadwgan," says the old lolo 
manuscript already quoted, *' who was a leader among 
the men of the valley and a doughty henchman of 
Glyndwr, and when it became necessary for him to call 
the people to battle he used to march up and down the 
valley whetting his axe. So when Owen came to Glyn 
Rhondda he would say, ' Cadwgan, whet thy battle-axe,' 
and the moment he was heard to do so all living persons 
collected about him in military array an.d from that day 
to this the battle shout of Glyn Rhondda has been 
' Cadwgan, whet thy battle-axe.' " 



1405] Welsh Reverses 261 

By October ist the King was back at Worcester. 
It would be of little profit to relate the various 
orders he gave for resisting and pacifying the Welsh, 
nor yet to give the names of the various Lord 
Marchers whom he ordered to proceed upon exped- 
itions with small forces, where he himself had 
failed with large ones. One is not surprised to 
find that Owen and his French allies had Wales 
for the most part to themselves and were unmolested 
during the winter. The greater part of the French, 
however, returned home again before Christmas, 
some seventeen hundred remaining, for whom 
Glyndwr found comfortable quarters. He seems to 
have been greatly disappointed at the departure of 
the others, as well as at the conduct of those who re- 
mained. The alliance, indeed, proved unsatisfactory 
to both parties. The French individually counted on 
booty as their reward, whereas they found for the 
most part a plundered and ravaged country. It is 
possible, too, there may have been some racial friction 
between the Welsh and their French allies. At any 
rate the latter, as one of their old chroniclers re- 
marks, did not do much bragging when they got 
home to Brittany, nor did those who remained in 
Wales conduct themselves by any means to the sat- 
isfaction of Glyndwr, but were altogether too much 
given up to thoughts of plundering their friends. 
Upon the whole their motives were too obvious and 
the prospect of further assistance from them not 
very cheering. 

Western Pembroke in the meantime (Little Eng- 
larid beyond Wales), finding itself cut off from all 



262 Owen Glyndwr [t405 

assistance, in spite of the girdle of splendid castles by 
which it was protected, began to find Glyndwr at 
last too much for it. The earldom was in abeyance 
and Sir Francis A' Court was governor of the county 
and known as Lord of Pembroke. He called to- 
gether the representatives of the district, who 
solemnly agreed to pay Glyndwr the sum of ;^200 
for a truce to last until the following May. So 
Pembroke, having humbled itself and in so doing 
having humbled England, which had thus failed it 
in its hour of need, had peace. And Glyndwr, still 
supreme, but not without some cause for depression, 
returned to Harlech to take counsel with his friends 
and prepare for a year that promised to be excep- 
tionally fruitful of good or ill. 




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CHAPTER IX 

THE TRIPARTITE INDENTURE 
1406 

DURING the lull of this winter of 1405-6 mes- 
sengers were going backwards and forwards 
between Harlech and Scotland. 

The chief event of the early part of the new year 
was the signing of that Tripartite Indenture which I 
have already spoken of as being so often attrib- 
uted to the period before the battle of Shrewsbury. 
Pity, for the sake of dramatic effect, that it was not, 
and as Shakespeare painted it ! Hotspur was then 
alive and the power of the Percys at its height, 
while Mortimer had not tarnished the splendour of 
his house and dimmed such measure of reputation as 
he himself enjoyed, by sinking his individuality in 
that of his wife's strenuous father. Glyndwr alone 
was greater than he had then been, though the zenith 
of his fortunes had been reached and he was soon to 
commence that long, hopeless struggle against fate 
and overwhelming odds that has caused men to for- 
get the ravager in the fortitude of the hero. 

Northumberland had outworn, as we have seen, 
263 



264 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

the King's marvellous forbearance, and was now a 
fugitive in Scotland with Bardolph, whose estates, 
like his own, had been confiscated, and whose 
person, like Northumberland's, was urgently wanted 
by Henry. The old Earl had lost his nerve and had 
taken alarm at certain indications on the part of the 
Scots that they would not object to hand him over 
to Henry in exchange for the doughty Lord Douglas 
who had been held in honourable captivity since the 
battle of Shrewsbury. Fearing this he and Bardolph 
took ship from the western coast for France. But 
either by prior agreement with Glyndwr or on their 
own initiative they rounded the stormy capes of 
Lleyn and, turning their ships' prows shorewards, 
landed in the sandy and sequestered cove of 
Aberdaron. 

Aberdaron is to this day the Ultima Thule of Wales, 
It was then a remote spot indeed, though in times 
long gone by, when pilgrims crept in thousands from 
shrine to shrine along the coasts of Lleyn to the great 
abbey, " The Rome of the Welsh," on Bardsey 
Island, it had been famous enough. It was not alone 
its remoteness that recommended this lonely outpost, 
flung out so far into the Irish Sea, to the two fugi- 
tives and irrepressible conspirators. David Daron, 
Dean of Bangor, a friend of Glyndwr, had been with 
them in the North as one of his commissioners and 
seems to have remained longer than his colleagues 
with Percy. At any rate he was Lord of the Manor 
of Aberdaron and had a house there to which he wel- 
comed his two English friends. The object of the 
latter was not merely to fly to France but to stir up 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 265 

its King to renewed efforts against Henry. Glyndwr, 
too, as we shall see, had been sending messengers to 
France, and the impending meeting at Aberdaron 
might be fruitful of great results. 

It is an easy run by sea of twenty miles or so from 
Harlech to the farther capes of Lleyn where the ro- 
mantic island of Bardsey, sanctified by the bones of its 
twenty thousand saints, lifts its head to an imposing 
height above the waves. To Aberdaron, just short of 
the farthest point of the mainland, then came Glyn- 
dwr, bringing with him Mortimer and no doubt 
others of his court. It was on February 28, 1406, 
that the meeting took place when the somewhat 
notable Indenture of Agreement was signed by the 
three contracting parties. The date of this proceed- 
ing has been by no means undisputed, but of all 
moments this particular one seems the most likely 
and has the sanction of the most recent and exhaust- 
ive historians of the period. 

The bards had been prolific and reminiscent during 
this quiet winter, and there seemed special call as 
well as scope for their songs and forecasts. The 
ancient prophecies of Merlin that were never allowed 
to slumber, regarding the future of Britain and the 
Welsh race, were now heard as loudly as they had 
been before the battle of Shrewsbury, interpreted in 
various ways in uncouth and strange metaphor. 
Henry was the " mouldwharp cursed of God's own 
mouth." A dragon would come from the north and 
with him a wolf from the west, whose tails would be 
tied together. Fearful things would happen upon 
the banks of the Thames and its channel would be 



266 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

choked with corpses. The rivers of England would 
run with blood. The " mouldwharp " would then be 
hunted out of the country by the dragon, the lion, and 
the wolf, or, in other words, by Glyndwr, Percy, and 
Mortimer. He would then be drowned and his king- 
dom divided between his three triumphant foes. 

Who framed the Indenture is not known ; perhaps 
Glyndwr himself, since he had been a barrister in 
his youth and was certainly a ready penman. The 
chronicler tells us that the contracting parties swore 
fidelity to each other upon the gospels before putting 
their names to the articles, and then proceeds to give 
what purports to be the full text of the latter in Latin, 
of which the following is a translation. 

" This year the Earl of Northumberland made a league 
and covenant and friendship with Ovvyn Glyndwr and 
Edmund Mortimer, son of the late Earl of March, in cer- 
tain articles of the form and tenor following : In the first 
place that these Lords, Owyn, the Earl, and Edmund 
shall henceforth be mutually joined, confederate, united 
and bound by the bond of a true league and true friend- 
ship and sure and good union. Again that every one of 
these Lords shall will and pursue, and also procure, the 
honour and welfare of one another ; and shall in good 
faith, hinder any losses and distresses which shall come 
to his knowledge, by anyone whatsoever intended to be 
inflicted on either of them. Every one also of them shall 
act and do with another all and every of those things, 
which ought to be done by good true and faithful friends 
to good, true and faithful friends, laying aside all deceit 
and fraud. Also, if ever any of the said Lords shall know 
and learn of any loss or damage intended against another 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 267 

by any persons whatsoever, he shall signify it to the others 
as speedily as possible, and assist them in that particular, 
that each may take such measures as may seem good 
against such malicious purposes ; and they shall be anx- 
ious to prevent such injuries in good faith; also they shall 
assist each other to the utmost of their power in the time 
of necessity. Also if by God's appointment it should ap- 
pear to the said Lords in process of time that they are 
the same persons of whom the Prophet speaks, between 
whom the Government of the Greater Britain ought to be 
divided and parted, then they and every one of them 
shall labour to their utmost to bring this effectually to be 
accomplished. Each of them, also, shall be content 
with that portion of the kingdom aforesaid, limited as be- 
low, without further exaction or superiority ; yea, each 
of them in such proportion assigned to him shall enjoy 
liberty. Also between the same Lords it is unanimously 
covenanted and agreed that the said Owyn and his heirs 
shall have the whole of Cambria or Wales, by the bord- 
ers, limits and boundaries underwritten divided from 
Loegira, which is commonly called England ; namely 
from the Severn Sea as the river Severn leads from the 
sea, going down to the north gate of the city of Worces- 
ter ; and from that gate straight to the Ash tree, com- 
monly called in the Cambrian or Welsh language Owen 
Margion, which grows on the highway from Bridgenorth 
to Kynvar ; thence by the highway direct, which is 
usually called the old or ancient way, to the head or 
source of the river Trent : thence to the head or source 
of the river Mense ; thence as that river leads to the sea^ 
going down within the borders, limits and boundaries 
above written. And the aforesaid Earl of Northumber- 
land shall have for himself and his heirs the counties 
below written, namely, Northumberland, Westmoreland, 



268 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

Lancashire, York, Lincoln, Nottingham, Derby, Stafford, 
Leicester, Northampton, Warwick, and Norfolk, And 
the Lord Edmund shall have all the rest of the whole of 
England, entirely to him and his heirs. Also should any 
battle, riot or discord fall out between two of the said 
Lords ( may it never be ) then the third of the said Lords, 
calling to himself good and faithful counsel, shall duly 
rectify such discord, riot and battle ; whose approval or 
sentence the discordant parties shall be held bound to 
obey. They shall also be faithful to defend the king- 
dom against all men ; saving the oak on the part of the 
said Owyn given to the most illustrious Prince Charles by 
the Grace of God King of the French, in the league and 
covenant between them made. And that the same be, 
all and singular, well and faithfully observed, the said 
Lords Owyn, the Earl, and Edmund, by the holy body 
of the Lord which they now steadfastly look upon and 
by the holy gospels of God by them now bodily touched, 
have sworn to observe the premises all and singular to 
their utmost, inviolably ; and have caused their seals to 
be mutually afifixed thereto." 

Little, however, was to come of all this. Earl 
Percy and Bardolph, after spending some two years 
partly under Glyndwr's protection and partly in 
France, found their way back to Scotland and in the 
spring of 1408 played their last stake. Their fatuous 
attempt with a small and ill -disciplined force of 
countrymen to overturn Henry's throne was easily 
defeated at Bramham Moor in Yorkshire by the 
sheriff of that county, and their heads and limbs were 
suspended from the gateways of various EngHsh 
cities as a testimony to the dismal failure which the 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 269 

great house of Percy had made of its persistent 
efforts to depose the King it had created. 

Glyndwr for his part was neither now, nor yet to 
be at any future time, in a position to help his 
friends outside Wales. His power had passed its 
zenith, though its decline is not marked by any 
special incidents in this year 1406. Much the most 
interesting event to be noted by the student of 
his career and period, at this turning-point of his 
fortunes, is a letter he wrote to the King of 
France, almost immediately after his return from the 
rendezvous with Northumberland and Bardolph. 
His headquarters in the early spring of this year 
seem to have been at Machynlleth, for the letter in 
question was written from Pennal, a village about 
four miles from this ancient outpost of Powys. Before 
touching, however, on the main object of this memor- 
able communication, it will be well to recall the fact 
that the remnants of the French invaders of the pre- 
vious year were just leaving Wales, to the great re- 
lief of Owen. But his disappointment at the nature 
of the help the French King had sent on this 
occasion by no means discouraged him from looking 
in the same direction for more effectual support. 

It was now the period of the Papal Schism. For 
nearly thirty years there had been two rival popes, 
the one at Rome, the other at Avignon, and Catholic 
Europe was divided into two camps, the countries 
who adhered to the one spiritual chief professing to 
regard the followers of the other as heretics unfit to 
breathe the air of this world and without hope of par- 
don in the next. The Christian Church was shaken 



270 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

to its foundations and degenerated into an arena of 
venomous strife. Nor was this only a war of words, 
beliefs, interdicts, and sacerdotal fulminations, for 
200,000 lives are said to have been lost over this 
squabble for the vicarship of Christ. Pious men de- 
plored the lamentable state to which those who 
should have been the upholders of religion had re- 
duced it. France, of course, in common with Spain, 
maintained the cause of her own Pope. England held 
to the Roman Pontiff, but even apart from the Lol- 
lard element, which was now considerable, regarded 
the wearisome dispute with a large measure of con- 
temptuous indifference. Scotland as a matter of 
course took the opposite side to England. There was 
no sentiment about " the island " among the Anglo- 
Normans who lived north of the Tweed and who 
had resisted successfully every attempt of their kins- 
men on the south of it to include them in their 
scheme of government. They were all aliens alike 
so far as those who had power were concerned, and 
would not have understood, probably, that strange 
sort of lingering loyalty to the soil that in spite of 
everything still survived among the remnant of the 
Britons. Glyndwr, of course, had acted directly 
against this ancient theory, but mercenary soldiers 
were now such a feature of military life that the im- 
portation of these Frenchmen was perhaps of less 
significance, more particularly as foreign troops were 
continually serving in England in the pay of various 
kings. Now, however, as a bait to the French King 
and to quicken his interest in his cause, Glyndwr 
offered to take Wales over to the allegiance of the 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 271 

Avignon Pope. In this Pennal letter Owen dwells 
at some length upon the details of the elections of the 
rival popes which the French King himself had sent 
over to him, and he excuses himself for following the 
English lead in the past and adhering to the Roman 
Pontiff on the score of not having hitherto been 
properly informed regarding the rights and wrongs of 
this same election. He recapitulates the promises 
made to him by the King if he would acknowledge 
Benedict XIII. and not his rival, Gregory XII. 

After holding a council of the " princes of his 
race," prelates, and other clergy he had decided to 
acknowledge the Avignon Pope. He begs the King of 
France, as interested in the well-being of the Church 
of Wales, to exert his influence with the Pope and 
prevail upon him to grant certain favours which he 
proceeds to enumerate : 

In the first place, that all ecclesiastical censures 
pronounced either by the late Clement or Benedict 
against Wales or himself or his subjects should be 
cancelled. Furthermore that they should be released 
from the obligation of all oaths taken to the so-called 
Urban and Boniface lately deceased and to their sup- 
porters. That Benedict should ratify ordinations 
and appointments to benefices and titles {ordines 
collates titulos) held or given by prelates, dispens- 
ations, and official acts of notaries, " involving 
jeopardy of souls or hurt to us and our subjects from 
the time of Gregory XI." Owen urges that Menevia 
(St. Davids) should be restored to its original con- 
dition as a Metropolitan church, which it held from 
the time of that saint himself, its archbishop and 



272 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

confessor, and under twenty-four archbishops after 
him, whose names, beginning with Clind and end- 
ing with the significantly Anglo-Saxon patronymic 
of Thompson, are herein set forth. Formerly, the 
writer goes on to say, St. Davids had under it 
the suffragan sees of Exeter, Bath, Hereford, 
Worcester, Leicester (now transferred to Coventry), 
Lichfield, St. Asaph, Bangor, Llandaff, and should 
rightly have them still, but the Saxon barbarians 
subordinated them to Canterbury. In language 
that in later centuries was to be so often and so vainly 
repeated, he represents that none but Welsh- 
speaking clergy should be appointed, from the 
metropolitan down to the curate. He requests 
also that all grants of Welsh parish churches to 
English monasteries or colleges should be annulled 
and that the rightful patrons should be compelled to 
present fit and proper persons to ordinaries, that 
freedom should be granted to himself and his heirs 
for their chapel, and all the privileges, immunities, 
and exemptions which it enjoyed under their prede- 
cessors. Curiously significant, too, and suggestive, is 
the point he makes of liberty to found two uni- 
versities, one for North and one for South Wales. 
Indeed this is justly regarded as one of many 
bits of evidence that Owen was not merely a battle- 
field hero, an avenging patriot, an enemy of tyrants, 
but that he possessed the art of constructive states- 
manship had he been given the opportunity to prove 
it. The educational zeal that does so much honour 
to modern Wales is fond of pointing to Glyndwr as 
the original mover in that matter of a Welsh national 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 273 

university which has so recently been brought to a 
successful issue. King Henry in this letter is natur- 
ally an object of special invective, and Owen prays 
that Benedict will sanction a crusade in the cus- 
tomary form against the usurper Henry of Lancaster 
for burning down churches and cathedrals, and for 
beheading, hanging, and quartering Welsh clergy, 
including mendicant friars, and for being a schis- 
matic. The writer would appear by this to have 
unladen his conscience of the burden of the smoking 
ruins of Bangor and St. Asaph and of many, it is to 
be feared, less noteworthy edifices. Indeed, we find 
him earlier in his career excusing himself for these 
sacrilegious deeds and putting the onus of them on 
the uncontrollable fury of his followers. But the ver- 
dict of posterity has in no way been shaken by these 
lame apologies. Finally he asks the French King 
to make interest with Benedict for plenary forgive- 
ness for his sins and those of his heirs, his subjects, 
and his men of whatsoever nation, provided they are 
orthodox, for the whole duration of the war with 
Henry of Lancaster. * 

This document, a transcript of which is in the 
Record Office, is preserved at Paris amongthe French 
government archives and has attached to it by a 
double string an imperfect yellow seal, bearing the 
inscription, " Owenus Dei Gratia princeps WalHae." 

* This letter, which covers many folio pages, has never been printed. 

It is in indifferent Latin with the usual abbreviations. In the matter 

of making and elucidating copies of it at the Record Office, Mr. 

Hubert Hall gave me some valuable assistance, as also did Mr. C, 

M. Bull. 
18 



2 74 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

It is dated the last day of March in the year of our 
Lord 1406 and "the sixth of our reign." The orig- 
inal is endorsed with a note in Latin to the effect 
that the above is the letter in which Owen, Prince 
of Wales, acknowledged obedience to " our Pope." 

This year was not a stirring one in Wales. France, 
to whom Owen was appealing, was in no condition, 
or at any rate in no mood, to try a serious fall with 
England. The policy of pin-pricks, to adapt a 
modern term to the more strenuous form of annoy- 
ance in practice in those times, had been pursued 
with tolerable consistency since the first year of 
Henry'sreign, and the most Christian King had never 
yet recognised his rival of England as a brother 
monarch. Richard the Second's child-Queen and 
widow, Isabel, had, after much haggling, been restored 
by Henry to France, but that portion of her dower 
which, according to her marriage settlement, should 
have been returned with her, was unobtainable. She 
was married to the Duke of Orleans's eldest son, aged 
eleven, the greater portion of her dower being a lien 
on Henry of England for the unpaid balance of the 
sum above alluded to, an indifferent security. In- 
ternational combats had been going merrily on in 
the Channel and piratical descents upon either coast 
were frequent. But this, of course, was not formal 
war, though a French invasion of England had been 
one of the chief nightmares of Henry's stormy 
reign. Internal troubles in France, however, now 
began somewhat to relax the strained nature of the 
relationship with England, and Owen's chances of 
Gallic help grew fainter. His son Griffith, or Grififin, 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 275 

was a prisoner in Henry's hands ; he had been com- 
mitted to the Tower, and by an irony of fate was 
under the special charge of one of that powerful 
family to whom his father's old captive, Reginald 
Grey of Ruthin, belonged. This gentleman. Lord 
de Grey of Cedmore, so the Issue Rolls of the reign 
inform us, was paid the sum of three and fourpence 
a day for Grififin, son of Owen de Glendowdy, and 
Owen ap Griffith ap Richard, committed to his cus- 
tody. Another companion in captivity for part of 
the time, of this " cub of the wolfe from the west," 
strange to say, was the boy-king of Scotland, who, 
like most monarchs of that factious and ill-governed 
country, was probably happier even under such 
depressing circumstances than if he were at large 
in his own country, and his life most certainly was 
much safer. 

The Rolls during all these years show a constant 
drain on the exchequer for provisions and money 
and sinews of war for the beleaguered Welsh castles. 
Here is a contract made with certain Bristol merchants, 
mentioned by name, for sixty-six pipes of honey, 
twelve casks of wine, four casks of sour wine, fifty 
casks of wheat flour, and eighty quarters of salt to 
be carried in diverse ships by sea for victualling and 
providing " the King's Kastles of Karnarvon, 
Hardelagh, Lampadarn, and Cardigarn." Here again 
are payments to certain " Lords, archers and men- 
at-arms to go to the rescue of Coity castle in Wales." 
The rate of pay allowed to the soldiers of that day 
for Welsh service is all entered in these old records 
and may be studied by the curious in such matters. 



276 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

"To Henry, Prince of Wales, wages for 120 men-at- 
arms and 350 archers at i2d. and 6d. per day for one 
quarter of a year remaining at the abbey of Stratflur and 
keeping and defending the same from malice of those 
rebels who had not submitted themselves to the obedience 
of the Lord the King and to ride after and give battle 
to the rebels as well in South as in North Wales 
;^666.i3.4." Again, in the same year: "To Henry 
Prince of Wales, for wages of 300 men-at-arms and 600 
archers and canoniers and other artificers for the war 
who lately besieged the castle of Hardelagh [Harlech]." 

From the latter of these extracts, which are quoted 
merely as types of innumerable entries of a like kind, 
it will be seen that cannons were used, at any rate 
in some of these sieges, and it is fairly safe to as- 
sume that those used against Glyndwr were the first 
that had been seen in Wales. 

As the year 1406 advanced, the star of Owen 
began most sensibly to wane. He was still, how- 
ever, keeping up the forms of regal state along the 
shores of Cardigan Bay, and we find him formally 
granting pardon to one of his subjects, John ap 
Howel, at Llanfair near Harlech. The instrument is 
signed " per ipsum Princepem," and upon its seal is 
a portrait of Owen bareheaded and bearded, seated 
on a throne-like chair, holding a globe in his left hand 
and a sceptre in his right. Among the witnesses to 
the instrument are Griffith Yonge, Owen's Chan- 
cellor, Meredith, his younger son, Rhys ap Tudor, 
and one or two others. There is much that is hazy 
and mysterious about the events of this year, but in 
most parts of Wales one hears little or nothing of 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 277 

any shifting of the situation or any loosening of the 
grip that Glyndwr's party had upon the country. 
An armed neutrality of a kind probably existed be- 
tween the Royalists in those towns and castles that 
had not fallen and the purely Celtic population in the 
open country, which had long before 1406 been 
purged of the hostile and the half-hearted of the 
native race, and purged as we know by means of a 
most trenchant and merciless kind. 

" While quarrels' rage did nourish ruinous rack 

And Owen Glendore set bloodie broils abroach, 
Full many a town was spoyled and put to sack 

And clear consumed to countries foul reproach, 
Great castles razed, fair buildings burnt to dust, 
Such revel reigned that men did live by lust." 

Old Churchyard, who wrote these lines, lived at 
any rate much nearer to Glyndwr's time than he did 
to ours, and reflects, no doubt, the feeling of the 
border counties and of no small number of Welsh- 
men themselves who were involved in that ruin from 
which Wales did not recover for a hundred years. 
In this year 1406, say the lolo manuscripts, " Wales 
had been so impoverished that even the means of 
barely sustaining life could not be obtained but by 
rewards of the King," referring, doubtless, to the 
Norman garrisons. " Glamorgan," says the same 
authority, " turned Saxon again at this time though 
two years later in 1408 they were excited to com- 
motions by the extreme oppressions of the King's 
men, "and when Owen returned once more to aid them, 
their chiefs who had forsaken his cause burnt their 



278 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

barns and stack-yards, rather than that their former 
leader and his people should find comfort from them. 
They themselves then fled, the chronicler continues, 
to England or the extremities of Wales, where in the 
King's sea-washed castles they found refuge from 
Owen's vengeance and were " supported by the re- 
wards of treason and strategem." 

More serious, however, than Glamorgan, bristling 
as it was with Norman interests and Norman castles 
and always hard to hold against them, the powerful 
and populous island of Anglesey in the north and 
the Vale of the Towy in the south fell away from 
Glyndwr. Sheer weariness of the strife, coupled 
perhaps with want of provisions, seems to have been 
the cause. It was due certainly to no active 
operations from the English border. Pardons upon 
good terms were continually held out in the name of 
Prince Henry and the King throughout the whole 
struggle to any who would sue for them, always ex- 
cepting Owen and his chief lieutenants, though even 
his son, as we have seen, was well treated in London. 
Anglesey was threatened all the time by the great 
castles of Conway, Carnarvon, and Beaumaris, which 
held out steadily for the King. Though there was 
no fighting in the island it is not unnatural that 
Glyndwr's supporters from thence, being cut off from 
their homes, which were liable to attacks by sea 
even when the castles were impotent, were among 
the first to give in. The strength of the following 
which he gathered from beyond the Menai is signifi- 
cant of the ardour of national enthusiasm in this 
old centre of the Princes of Gwynedd, no less than 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 279 

2 1 12 names of Anglesey men being submitted at 
one time in this year for pardon. It is possible that 
these backsliders did not all go home empty-handed, 
but that a fair amount of plunder from the sack of 
Marcher castles and the ravage of Marcher lands 
found its way back with them. However that may 
be, a royal commission was opened at Beaumaris on 
November loth of this year 1406 for the granting of 
pardons and the assessment of fines to be paid there- 
for. There is a list still extant in manuscript of the 
whole two thousand-and-odd names. It will be 
sufficient to notice, as a point not without interest, 
that the six commotes of Anglesey paid;^537. 7. o. 
in fines upon this account. The goods of those slain 
in battle were forfeited to the King, to be redeemed 
at prices ranging from 2s. for a horse to 4d. for a 
sheep. A few were outlawed, among whom was 
David Daron, Dean of Bangor, at whose house the 
Tripartite Convention was signed early in the year, 
while Bifort, Bishop of Bangor, Owen's agent as he 
might almost be called, together with the Earl of 
Northumberland, was naturally excluded from pur- 
chasing his pardon. Henceforward we hear little of 
Anglesey in connection with Owen, though the re- 
maining years of his resistance are so misty in their 
record of him that it would be futile to attempt 
a guess at the part its people may or may not have 
played in the long period of his decline. 

The defection of Ystrad Towy, the heart and life 
of the old South Welsh monarchy and always a great 
source of strength to Owen, must have been still 
more disheartening, but it seems likely that the 



28o Owen Glyndwr [1406 

submission of his allies between Carmarthen, Dyne- 
vor, and Llandovery was of a temporary nature. 
Mysterious but undoubtedly well-founded traditions, 
too, have come down concerning the movements of 
Glyndwr himself during the latter part of this year. 
He is pictured to us as wandering about the country, 
sometimes with a few trusty followers, sometimes 
alone and in disguise. This brief and temporary 
withdrawal from publicity does not admit of any con- 
fusion with the somewhat similar circumstances in 
which he passed the closing years of his life. All old 
writers are agreed as to this hiatus in the midst of 
Glyndwr's career, even when they differ in the pre- 
cise date and in the extent of his depression. One 
speaks of him as a hunted outlaw, which for either the 
year 1405 or 1406 is of course ridiculous. Another, 
with much more probability, represents him as going 
about the country in disguise with a view to discov- 
ering the inner sentiments of the people. A cave is 
shown near the mouth of the Dysanni between 
Towyn and Llwyngwril, where during this period he 
is supposed to have been concealed for a time from 
pursuing enemies by a friendly native. Upon the 
mighty breast of Moel Hebog, over against Snowdon, 
another hiding-place is connected with his name and 
with the same crisis in his fortunes. A quite recently 
published manuscript * from the Mostyn collection 
contains a story to the effect that when the abbot of 
Valle Crucis, near Llangollen, was walking on the 
Berwyns early one morning he came across Glyndwr 
wandering alone and in desultory fashion. The 

* A Soldier of Calais. 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 281 

abbot, as head of a Cistercian foundation, was pre- 
sumably unfriendly to the chieftain whose icono- 
clasms must have horrified even his friends the 
Franciscans. There is nothing of interest in the 
actual details of this chance interview. The fact 
of Glyndwr being alone in such a place is suggestive 
and welcome merely as a little bit of evidence 
recently contributed to the strong tradition of 
his long wanderings. The abbot appears from the 
narrative to have been anything but glad to see him 
and told him that he had arisen a hundred years too 
soon, to which the Welsh leader and Prince made no 
reply but " turned on his heel and departed in 
silence." 

A much fuller and better-known story, however, of 
this mysterious period of Glyndwr's career survives 
in the lolo manuscripts. Sir Laurence Berkrolles of 
St. Athan was a famous scion of that Anglo-Norman 
stock who had carved up Glamorganshire in Henry 
the First's time. He had inherited the great castle 
and lordship of Coity from his mother's family, the 
Turbervilles, whose male line had only just failed after 
three centuries of such occupation as must have made 
men of them indeed. Sir Laurence, it need hardly 
be remarked, had experienced a stormy time for 
the past few years, battling for his patrimony 
with Glyndwr's sleepless legions. There was now 
a lull, presumably in this year 1406, and Sir Lau- 
rence was resting in his castle and rejoicing doubtless 
in the new sense of security to which Glamorgan had 
just settled down. Hither one day came a strange 
gentleman, unarmed and accompanied by a servant, 



282 Owen Glyndwr [1406 

and requested in French a night's lodging of Sir Lau- 
rence. The hospitable Marcher readily assented and 
placed the best that the castle afforded before his 
guest, to whom he took so great a fancy that he ended 
in begging him to prolong his stay for a few days. 
As an inducement he informed the traveller that it 
was quite possible he might in such case be fortunate 
enough to see the great Owen Glyndwr, for it was 
rumoured that he was in that neighbourhood, and he 
(Sir Laurence) had despatched his tenants and serv- 
ants and other men in his confidence to hunt for 
Owen and bring him in, alive or dead, under 
promise of great reward. 

" It would be very well," replied the guest, " to 
secure that man were any persons able to do so." 

Having remained at Sir Laurence's castle four days 
and three nights the stranger announced his intention 
of departing. On doing so he held out his hand to 
his host and thus addressed him : 

" Owen Glyndwr, as a sincere friend, having neither 
hatred, treachery, or deception in his heart, gives his 
hand to Sir Laurence Berkrolles and thanks him for 
his kindness and generous reception which he and his 
friend (in the guise of a servant) have experienced 
from him at his castle, and desires to assure him on 
oath, hand in hand, and hand on heart, that it will 
never enter his mind to avenge the intentions of Sir 
Laurence towards him, and that he will not, so far as 
he may, allow such desire to exist in his own know- 
ledge and memory, nor in the minds of any of his 
relations or adherents." Having spoken thus and with 
such astonishing coolness disclosed his identity, 



1406] The Tripartite Indenture 283 

Glyndwr and his pseudo-servant went their way. 
Sir Laurence was struck dumb with amazement, and 
that not merely in a metaphorical but in a literal 
sense, for the story goes on to say that he lost the 
power of speech from that moment ! Glyndwr's 
faithful laureate, lolo Goch, strengthens the tradition 
of his master's mysterious disappearance at this time 
by impassioned verses deploring his absence and call- 
ing on him to return to his heartbroken poet : 

'* I saw with aching heart 
The golden dream depart ; 
His glorious image in my mind, 
Was all that Owain left behind. 
Wild with despair and woebegone 
Thy faithful bard is left alone, 
To sigh, to weep, to groan. 

" Thy sweet remembrance ever dear, 
Thy name still ushered by a tear, 
My inward anguish speak ; 
How could'st thou, cruel Owain, go 
And leave the bitter tears to flow 
Down Gryffydd's furrowed cheek ? " 




CHAPTER X 

ABERYSTWITH. OWEN'S POWER DECLINES 
I 407- I 408 

LITTLE is known of Owen's movements during 
the first half of the year 1407. Entries here 
and there upon the Rolls indicate that no im- 
provement so far as the general peace of Wales was 
concerned had taken place, whatever there may 
have been in Henry's prospects of ultimately recov- 
ering his authority there, prospects which now wore 
a much brighter look. For though Glyndwr and his 
captains were still active in the field, there neverthe- 
less runs through all the scant scraps of news we now 
get of him an unmistakable note of depression on 
the part of his friends, with proportionate confidence 
on that of his enemies. Prince Henry was still 
Lieutenant of the Marches of South Wales, in addi- 
tion to his hereditary jurisdiction, such as it now 
was, over the royal counties. A great effort was in 
contemplation, in view of Owen's failing strength, to 
put a complete end to the war. Pardons were freely 
offered to his supporters, and even urged, upon the 
most lenient terms, and the Marcher Barons, who 

284 



[1407-1408] Aberystwith 285 

were inclined at times, when not personally in dan- 
ger, to forget the conditions on which they held 
their lands, were sternly forbidden to leave their 
castles. Things had not been going well in France ; 
Calais had been hard pressed and the great English 
possessions in the South had been lamentably re- 
duced in extent. Edward the Third is computed to 
have reigned over six million subjects to the north 
of the Pyrenees, a population much greater than 
that of England and Wales combined. Henry had 
but a fraction left of this kingdom, and that fraction 
most unsteady in its devotion. He had been sev- 
eral times on the very point of making a personal 
attempt to repair his failing fortunes beyond the 
Channel. But his health was beginning even thus 
early to fail, and his nerves were completely un- 
strung. He had made up his mind, however, to lead 
one more expedition against Owen, now that the 
chances seemed so much more favourable than 
on former occasions. From even this, however, it 
will be seen that he ultimately flinched, and it was 
perhaps well that he did so. His son and the cap- 
tains round him understood Welsh warfare much 
better than Henry. The rush of great armies 
through Wales had failed hopelessly as a means of 
coercing it, and would fail again. The steady press- 
ure of armed bands upon Owen's front and flanks, 
and liberal terms to all who deserted him, were the 
only methods of wearing out the resources of this 
stubborn patriot, and they were already succeeding. 
That he was himself pressing hard upon Pembroke- 
shire, however, just at this time is evident from the 



286 Owen Glyndwr [1407- 

orders which were issued for forwarding arms and 
provisions for the defence of the royal castles in that 
county, the recipient being Sir Francis A' Court, the 
King's constable there. Aberystwith castle, how- 
ever, was to be the chief point of the Prince's attack 
this autumn, and his father, as I have said, was ex- 
pected to take part in an expedition that came to be 
associated with much eclat. 

An impression not altogether easy to account for, 
that the fall of this great castle would prove the final 
blow to Owen's resistance, got abroad, and there Was 
a great rush of knights and nobles to take part in 
the ceremony. A picked force of 2400 archers 
and men-at-arms was told off for the service, and an 
entry in the Issue Rolls notes the sum of ^^6825 as 
being set aside for their pay over the period of six 
months beginning in June. This was a strong 
nucleus for an expedition that could be supple- 
mented by the levies of the border counties and 
the spare strength of the local Marcher barons. 
Aberystwith Castle occupies a site of much distinc- 
tion, placed upon a bold promontory projecting into 
the sea. Its ruins still survive as one of the innum- 
erable witnesses to Cromwell's superfluous vandalism, 
and afford a favourite lounge to summer visitors at 
the popular Welsh watering-place. But the first 
castle built on Norman lines was erected in the 
twelfth century by Gilbert de Strongbow, the earliest 
Norman adventurer in this district. A centre for 
generations of Norman-Welsh strife, dismantled and 
restored again and again by contentious chieftains, 
it was finally rebuilt by Edward I. ; and what Crom- 



1408] Aberystwith 287 

well and time's destroying hand have left of it dates 
chiefly from that luminous epoch in Welsh history. 
Not many of those, perhaps, who loiter amidst its life- 
less fragments are aware that in the season of 1407 
it was the object of quite a fashionable crusade on 
the part of the chivalry of England, well supplied 
with every requisite of siege warfare that the primi- 
tive science of the period could provide. 

Harlech was at this time the headquarters of 
Glyndwr's family, including Edmund Mortimer, but 
to localise Glyndwr himself becomes now more dif- 
ficult than ever. Since Carmarthen and most of 
South Wales had forsaken their allegiance, his en- 
ergies must have been still more severely taxed in 
keeping up the spirit and directing the movements 
of his widely scattered bands. We heard of him 
lately raiding through Pembroke and threatening 
the Flemish settlements. Merioneth and Carnarvon 
in the North were still faithful, and we can well be- 
lieve that the great castles of Aberystwith and Har- 
lech, lying midway between the remnant of his south- 
ern followers and those of the North, were in some 
sort the keys to the situation. Aberystwith, in 
which Glyndwr had placed a strong garrison under 
a trusty captain, seemed so, at any rate, to the Eng- 
lish. Great guns were sent all the way from York- 
shire to Bristol, to be forwarded thence by sea to the 
coast of Cardigan, while ample stores of bows and 
arrows, bowstrings, arblasts, stone-shot, sulphur, and 
saltpetre were ordered to be held in readiness at 
Hereford. Woods upon the banks of the Severn 
were to be cut down and the forest of Dean to be 



288 Owen Glyndwr [1407- 

picked over for trees, out of which was to be con- 
trived the siege machinery for the subjugation of 
hapless Aberystwith. A troop of carpenters were to 
sail from Bristol for the devoted spot and erect scaf- 
folds and wooden towers upon a scale such as had 
not been before witnessed at any of the innumerable 
sieges of this Welsh war. Proclamations calling out 
the great nobility of western England and the 
Marches to meet the King and Prince at Hereford 
were sent out. Owen, as well as Aberystwith and 
Harlech, was to be crushed, and the King himself, 
with the flower of his chivalry, was to be there to 
witness the closing scene. How far off even yet was 
the final extinction of Owen, no one then could have 
well imagined. 

But a temporary check came to these great pre- 
parations. The King, as he had shrunk from cross- 
ing the Channel, now shrank from crossing the Welsh 
border. A pestilence, somewhat more severe than 
those which were almost chronic in the country in 
those days, swept over the island and was more 
virulent in the West than elsewhere. It may have 
been this that for a time suspended operations. 
Strange to say, too, the Richard myth was not quite 
extinct, for during this summer bills were found 
posted up about London proclaiming that he was 
" yet alive and in health, and would come again 
shortly with great magnificence and power to re- 
cover his kingdom." But neither pestilence nor the 
vagaries of the King nor false rumours of the dead 
Richard were allowed to permanently unsettle the 
Aberystwith enterprise. Fighting in Wales had by 



14081 Aberystwith 289 

no means been a popular or fashionable pastime, 
when there was no territory to be won or to be de- 
fended. It was poor sport for the heavy-armed sons 
of Mars of that period, all athirst for glory, this tilt- 
ing over rough ground at active spearmen who melted 
away before their cumbrous onslaught only to return 
and deal out death and wounds at some unexpected 
moment or in some awkward spot. But now whole 
clouds of gay cavaliers, besides men scarred and 
weather-beaten with Welsh warfare, gathered to the 
crusade against Aberystwith. French wars just 
now were at a discount, not because the spirit was 
unwilling, but because the exchequer was weak, 
so, the supply of fighting knights and squires being 
for the moment greater than the demand, Prince 
Henry reaped the benefit of the situation in his 
march through South Wales. 

But the bluest blood and the most brilliant equip- 
ment were futile in attack against castles that nature 
and Edward the First had combined to make invul- 
nerable. The guns and scaffolds and wooden towers 
were all there,, but they were powerless against 
Aberystwith and the brave Welshmen who, under 
Owen's lieutenant, Rhys ap Grififith ap Llewelyn, 
defended it. The King's particular cannon, weigh- 
ing four and one half tons, was there, which, with 
another called the Messenger, shook the rock-bound 
coasts, striking terror, we may well fancy, into the 
peasants of that remote country and proving more 
destructive to those behind it than those before, for 
we are told that it burst during the siege, a common 
thing with cannons of that day, dealing death to all 



290 Owen Glyndwr [1407- 

around. Once an hour, it is usually estimated, was 
the greatest rapidity with which these cumbrous 
pieces could be fired with safety, and we may well 
believe that the moment of explosion must have 
been a much more anxious one, seeing how often 
they burst, to their friends beside them than to their 
foes hidden behind the massive walls of a Norman 
castle. The Duke of York was there, and the Earl 
of Warwick, who, two years previously, had defeated 
Glyndwr in a pitched battle and was eager, no doubt, 
to meet him again. Sir John Grendor, too, was 
present, no courtier, but a hero of the Welsh wars, 
and Sir John Oldcastle, a typical border soldier, who 
became Lord Cobham and was ultimately hunted 
down as a Lollard at Welshpool and burned by 
Henry V. ; while Lord Berkeley commanded the 
fleet and managed the siege train. It was not 
known at Aberystwith, either by the Welsh or the 
besiegers, where Owen was. He could not readily 
trust himself in castles, besieged both by land and 
sea, and run the risk of being caught like a fox in a 
trap. He bided his time, on this occasion, as will be 
seen, and arrived precisely at the right moment. 
Prince Henry found the castle impregnable to as- 
sault, and there was nothing for it but to sit down 
and reduce it by starvation. The only hope of the 
garrison lay in Owen's relieving them, and with such 
an army before them the possibility of this seemed 
more than doubtful. Provisions soon began to fail, 
and in the middle of September Rhys ap Griffith 
made overtures and invited seventeen of the English 
leaders within the castle to arrange a compromise. 



1408] Aberystwith 291 

One of these was Richard Courtney of the Powder- 
ham family, a scholar of Exeter College, Oxford, 
and Chancellor of the University. Mass was said 
by this accomplished person to the assembled Welsh 
and English leaders, after which they received the 
sacrament and then proceeded to draw up an agree- 
ment which seems a strange one. By it the Welsh 
undertook to deliver up the castle on November ist 
if Glyndwr had not in the meantime appeared and 
driven off the besiegers. Till that date an armistice 
was to continue. Those of the garrison who would 
not accept these terms were to be turned out to take 
their chance ; the rest were to receive a full pardon 
at the capitulation. The abbot of Ystradfflur, who, 
though a Cistercian, had taken Owen's side, and 
three Welsh gentlemen, were given up as hostages. 

The Prince and his nobles were doubtless glad 
enough to get away from so monotonous a task in so 
remote a spot, though their return to England was 
hardly a glorious one. No one seems to have ex- 
pected Owen, and only five hundred soldiers were 
left in camp at the abbey of YstradfHur, some fifteen 
miles off, to insure the proper fulfilment of the 
agreement when November should come round. 
Parliament was to meet and did meet at Gloucester 
in October, and the King himself, so much import- 
ance did he attach to Aberystwith, still talked of re- 
turning with his son to receive its surrender at the 
appointed time. But neither the royal progress 
nor the surrender became matters of fact, for during 
October Owen slipped unexpectedly into the castle 
with a fresh force, repudiated, as indeed he had a 



292 Owen Glyndwr [1407- 

right to repudiate, the agreement, and branded as 
traitors to his cause those who had made it, which 
was hard. The five hundred royal soldiers at 
Ystradfflur had shrunk in numbers and relaxed in 
discipline, and had at any rate no mind to encounter 
Owen, who remained in possession of the west coast 
and its castles throughout a winter which so far as 
any further news of him is concerned was an un. 
eventful one. In the meantime the Parliament 
which sat at Gloucester for six weeks in the autumn 
was greatly exercised about Welsh affairs. Wales 
had returned no revenue since Glyndwr first raised 
his standard, and the sums of money that had been 
spent in vain endeavours to crush his power had been 
immense. The feeling was now stronger than ever 
that taxation for this purpose, one that brought no 
returns either in glory or plunder, had reached its 
limit, and that it was high time the nobles whose in- 
terests lay in Wales should take upon themselves 
for the future the heavy burden of Welsh affairs. 

One incident occurred at this Parliament which 
had some significance and was not without humour. 
The Prince of Wales was publicly thanked for his 
services before Aberystwith almost upon the very 
day when, unknown, of course, to him and to those 
at distant Gloucester, Owen had slipped into the cas- 
tle about which so much stir was being made, upset 
the whole arrangement, and turned the costly cam- 
paign into an ignominious failure. It is significant, 
too, that the Prince, after acknowledging the praises 
of his father and the Parliament, kneeled before the 
former and "spake some generous words" concern- 



1408] Aberystwith 293 

ing the Duke of York, whose advice and assistance 
"had rescued the whole expedition from peril and 
desolation." This looks as if Owen's people had not 
allowed the return journey of the Prince and his 
friends and his even still large force to be the pro- 
menade that Avas expected. It may well indeed have 
been the ubiquitous Glyndwr himself from whom 
the sagacity of the Duke delivered them in the 
wilds of Radnor or Carmarthen. Though Aberyst- 
with and Harlech were safe for this winter, the 
Prince, with a deliberation perhaps emphasised by 
chagrin at his failure, made arrangements for a sec- 
ond attempt to be undertaken in the following 
summer. 

The winter of 1407-1408 was the most terrible 
within living memory. It is small wonder that no 
echo of siege or battle or feat of arms breaks the si- 
lence of the snow-clad and war-torn country. Birds 
and animals perished by thousands, for a sheet of 
frozen snow lay upon the land from before Christmas 
till near the end of March. Yet outside Wales even 
so cruel a winter could not still all action. For 
Glyndwr's old ally, Northumberland, selected this, 
of all times and seasons, for that last reckless bid for 
power which has been before alluded to, and with 
Bardolf and Bifort, Owen's Bishop of Bangor, went 
out across the bitter cold of the Yorkshire moors, the 
first two of them, at any rate, to death and ruin. 
Bifort, however, seems to have got away and carried 
the nominal honours of his bishopric for many 
years. 

The opening of summer in 1408 found Owen still 



294 Owen Glyndwr [1407- 

active and dangerous. No longer so as of old to the 
peace of England and to Henry's throne, — that crisis 
had passed away, — but he was still an unsurmounta- 
ble obstacle to the good government of Wales. We 
know this rather from the anxiety to subdue him 
manifested this year by the King's council to the 
exclusion of all other business, than from any de- 
tailed knowledge of his actions. Of these one can 
guess the general tenor, and the necessary sameness 
of a guerilla warfare somewhat mitigates the disap- 
pointment natural at the lack of actual detail. One 
gathers from the brief but, from one point of view, 
significant entries in the public records how entirely 
demoralised most of the country still remained. 
Here is an order to prevent supplies being sent to 
the rebels ; there a caution to keep the bonfires in 
Cheshire or Shropshire ready for the match ; there 
again are notes of persons becoming surety for the 
good behaviour of repentant Welshmen, or Lord 
Marchers trying to come again to terms with their 
rebellious Cymric tenants. Panic-stricken letters, 
however, came no more from beleaguered castles, 
nor do the people of Northampton any longer quake 
in their beds at the name of Glyndwr, though the 
border counties, and with good cause, feel as yet by 
no means wholly comfortable, 

"In 1408," says the lolo manuscript, "the men of 
Glamorgan were excited to commotion by the extra op- 
pression of the King's men ; many of the chieftains who 
had obtained royal favour burnt their stacks and barns 
lest Owen's men should take them. But these chieftains 
fled to the extremity of England and Wales, where they 



1408] Aberystwith 295 

were defended in the castles and camps of the King's 
forces and supported by the rewards of treason and 
stratagem. Owen could not recover his lands and au- 
thority because of the treachery prevalent in Anglesey 
and Arvon, which the men of Glamorgan called the 
treason of the men of Arvon." 

All this is sadly involved, but one treasures any- 
thing that has a genuine ring about it in connection 
with this shadowy year. Arvon, it may be remarked, 
is the " cantref " facing the submissive Anglesey, 
and no doubt the royal castle of Carnarvon was able 
by this time to exercise an intimidating influence on 
that portion of the country. 

Prince Henry's commission as Lieutenant of both 
North and South Wales was again renewed ; and, 
gathering his forces at Hereford in June, he again 
moved on towards the stubborn castle of Aberyst- 
with, making Carmarthen, the old capital of South 
Wales, his base of operations. Aberystwith this 
time held out till winter, when it at last fell, the gar- 
rison meeting with no harsher treatment than that 
of ejection without arms or food. Harlech, which 
Gilbert and John Talbot had by the throat, with a 
thousand well-armed men and a big siege train, re- 
sisted even longer. The Welsh this time were able 
to utilise the sea, which in those days beat against 
the foot of the high rock upon which the castle 
stands, a rock now removed from the shore by half 
a mile or more of sandy common. Glyndwr, too, 
was now able to move freely from one beleaguered 
fortress to another. Both of them held out with 
singular valour and tenacity, attacking the provision 



296 Owen Glyndwr [1407- 

boats which came from Bristol for the besieging 
armies, and disputing every point that offered an op- 
portunity with sleepless vigilance and tireless energy. 
Edmund Mortimer died either during the siege or 
immediately after the surrender, of starvation some 
writers say, though privation would perhaps be a 
more appropriate and likely term. Mortimer's wife 
and three girls, with a son Lionel, together with 
that " eminent woman of a knightly family," Glyn- 
dwr's own consort, fell into the King's hands with 
the capture of Harlech, and seem to have been taken 
to London in a body. 

There is something pathetic about this wholesale 
termination of Owen's domestic life, in what for that 
period would be called his old age. One longs, too, to 
know something about it. How Margaret Hanmer 
deported herself under the reflected glories of her 
lord. Whether indeed she saw much of him, and if 
so, where ; whether she was a stout-hearted patriot 
and bore the trials and the uncertainties of her 
dangerous pre-eminence with proud fortitude, or 
whether she wept over the placid memories of 
Sycherth and Glyndyfrdwy, and deplored the for- 
tune that had made her a hero's wife and a wanderer. 
She had three married daughters to give her shelter 
in Herefordshire. Let us hope that she found her 
way to one of them, as her husband did years later 
when the storms of his life were over. As for the 
Mortimers, that branch of the family was entirely 
wiped out. The children died, and the gentle 
Katherine, who had married so near the throne of 
England, soon followed them and lies somewhere 



1408] Aberystwith 297 

beneath the roar of London traffic in a city church- 
yard. One account places the capture and removal 
to London of Glyndwr's family at a later period, but 
as the interest in this is chiefly a matter of senti- 
ment, the precise date is of no special moment. 

The lines were now rapidly tightening round 
Owen. The English government, by this time 
fairly free from foreign complications, showed a 
viligance in Wales which it would have been well 
for it to have shown in former years, when the 
danger was much greater. Owen, on his part, re- 
lapsed gradually into a mere guerilla leader, though 
the hardy bands that still rallied round him and 
scorned to ask for pardon were still so numerous 
and formidable that it was with difficulty the King 
could prevent some of the Marcher barons even now 
from purchasing security against his attacks. Talbot 
with bodies of royal troops still remained as a garri- 
son in Wales. It is curiously significant, too, and 
not readily explicable, that in this year 1409 the 
town of Shrewsbury closed her gates against an 
English army marching into Wales and refused them 
provisions. It looks as if even the honest Salopians, 
tired of keeping guard against the ubiquitous 
Glyndwr, had thus late, and for the second time in 
the war, made some sort of terms with him. We find 
also Charleton, Lord of Powys, about this time grant- 
ing pardons to those of his tenants who had been 
"out with Glyndwr," while he was rewarding his 
more faithful lieges in the borough of Welshpool 
by an extension of their corporation limits to an 
area of twenty thousand acres, an unique distinction 



298 Owen Glyndwr [1407- 

which that interesting border town enjoys to this 
day. 

Meanwhile it must not be supposed that the royal 
party treated all Welsh captives with the leniency 
we have seen at Aberyswith, Harlech, and else- 
where. Rhys Ddu, a noted captain of Glyndwr's, 
and Philip Scudamore, a scion of that famous Here- 
fordshire family into which the Welsh leader's 
daughter had married, were taken prisoners while 
raiding in Shropshire and sent to London and placed 
in the Tower, where several Welsh nobles had been 
this long time languishing. Rhys was taken to the 
Surrey side of the river by the Earl of Arundel, 
tried, and handed over to the sheriff, who had him 
dragged upon a hurdle to Tyburn and there executed. 
His quarters, like those of many Welsh patriots be- 
fore him, were sent to hang over the gates of four 
English cities, and his head was affixed to London 
Bridge. Ten Welsh gentlemen were under lock and 
key at Windsor Castle. They were now handed 
over to the Marshal and kept in the Tower till 
heavy ransoms were forthcoming. But Henry's 
treatment of his Welsh enemies was upon the whole 
the reverse of vengeful, and he was wise in his gen- 
eration. His wholesale pardons to men wearied 
with years of war in a cause now so utterly hopeless 
were infinitely more efficacious against that implaca- 
ble foe who would not himself dream of asking 
terms. Owen, too, on his part had many prisoners, 
hidden away in mountain fastnesses, chief of whom 
was the hapless David Gam, whom my readers will 
almost have forgotten. Nine of these, we are told 



14081 Aberystwith 299 

by one writer, his followers hung, greatly to their 
leader's chagrin, since he wanted them for hostages 
or for exchange. 

The Avignon Pope had done Owen little good. 
A certain religious flavour was introduced into the 
martial songs of the bards, and Owen's native claims 
to the leadership of Wales were now supplemented 
by papal and ecclesiastical blessings from this new 
and very modern fount of inspiration. But every- 
thing ecclesiastical at Bangor was in ashes, the torch, 
it will be remembered, having been applied by 
Glyndwr himself. The royal bishop. Young, had 
years before fled to England and was now enjoying 
the peaceful retirement of Rochester. Owen's 
bishop, Bifort, as we have seen, was a wandering 
soldier. The more vigorous Trevor, who came back 
to Owen in 1404, was at this time in France, making 
a last effort, it is supposed, to interest the French 
King in Glyndwr's waning cause. But death over- 
took him while still in Paris, and he lies buried in 
the chapel of the infirmary of the Abbey de St. 
Victor beneath the following epitaph : 

" Hie jacet Reverendus in Christo Pater Johannes 
Episcopus asaphensis in Wallia qui obiit A.D. 1410 die 
secundo mensis aprilis cujus anima feliciter requiescat in 
pace. Amen." 




CHAPTER XI 

LAST YEARS OF OWEN'S LIFE 
I4IO-I416 

OF the last six years of Owen's life, those from 
1410 to 1416, there is little to be said. His 
cause was hopelessly lost and he had quite 
ceased to be dangerous, Wales was reconquered 
and lay sick, bleeding, and wasted beneath the calm 
of returning peace. Thousands, it is to be feared, 
cursed Glyndwr as they looked upon the havoc 
which the last decade had wrought. The unsuccess- 
ful rebel or patriot, call him what you will, has far 
more friends among those yet unborn than among 
his own contemporaries, above all in the actual 
hour of his failure. Of this failure, too, the Welsh 
were reminded daily, not only by their wasted 
country and ruined homesteads but by fierce laws 
enacted against their race and a renewal on both 
sides of that hatred which the previous hundred 
years of peace had greatly softened. 

Men born of Welsh parents on both sides were 
now forbidden to purchase land near any of the 
Marcher towns. They were not permitted to be 

300 



[1410-1416] Last Years of Owens Life 301 

citizens of any borough, nor yet to hold any office, 
nor carry armour nor any weapon. No Welshman 
could bind his child to a trade, nor bring him up to 
letters, while English men who married Welsh women 
were disfranchised of their liberties. In all suits 
between Englishmen and Welshmen the judge and 
jury were to be of the former race, while all 
" Cym-morthau," or gatherings for mutual assistance 
in harvest or domestic operations, were strictly 
forbidden. 

These laws were kept on the statute books till the 
real union of Wales and England in Henry the 
Eighth's time, but gradually became a dead letter as 
the memory of the first ten bloody years of the cent- 
ury grew fainter. Glyndwr, however, believed in 
the justice of his cause, and if he expressed remorse 
for the methods which he had used to uphold it, we 
hear nothing of such apologies. That he showed 
the courage of his convictions in heroic fashion no 
one can gainsay. That men could be found to stand 
even yet in such numbers by his side is the most el- 
oquent tribute that could be paid to his personal 
magnetism. He had lost all his castles, unless in- 
deed, as seems likely, those grim towers of Dolba- 
darn and Dolwyddelan in the Snowdon mountains 
were left to him. He became henceforward a mere 
outlaw, confined entirely to the mountains of Car- 
narvon and Merioneth, between those fierce and 
rapid raids which we dimly hear of him still making 
upon the Northern Marches. His old companions, 
Rhys and William ap Tudor, who had been with him 
from the beginning, were in the King's hands, and 



302 Owen Glyndwr ri4io- 

were about this time executed at Chester with the 
usual barbarities of the period. The elder was the 
grandfather of Owen Tudor, and consequently the an- 
cestor of our present King. David Gam was still a 
prisoner in Owen's hands till 1412, when the King 
entered into negotiations for his release through the 
agency of Llewelyn ap Howel, Sir John Tiptoft, and 
William Boteler. What terms were made we know 
not ; an exchange was in all likelihood effected, see- 
ing how many of Owen's friends were in captivity. 
David's liberation, however, was by some means suc- 
cessfully accomplished, and he lived to fight and 
fall by the King's side at Agincourt, being knighted, 
some say, as he lay dying upon that memorable field. 

When, in 14 1 3, Prince Henry came to the throne, 
he issued a pardon to all Welsh rebels indiscrimi- 
nately, not excepting Glyndwr. But, obstinate to 
the last, the old hero held to his mountains, refusing 
to ask or to receive a favour, striking with his now 
feeble arm, whenever chance offered, the English 
power or those who supported it. When Henry IV. 
succumbed to those fleshly ills which constant trouble 
had brought upon his once powerful frame, Glyndwr 
was still in the field and royal troops still stationed 
in the Welsh mountains to check his raids. Tradi- 
tion has it that he was at last left absolutely alone, 
when he is supposed to have wandered about the 
country in disguise and in a fashion so mysterious 
that a wealth of legend has gathered around these 
wanderings. 

"In 1415," says one old chronicler, "Owen disap- 
peared so that neither sight nor tidings of him could be 



1416] Last Years of Owens Life 303 

obtained in the country. It was rumoured that he es- 
caped in the guise of a reaper bearing a sickle, according 
to the tidings of the last who saw and knew him, after 
which little or no information transpired respecting him 
nor of the place or name of his concealment. The pre- 
valent opinion was that he died in a wood in Glamorgan ; 
but occult chroniclers assert that he and his men still 
live and are asleep on their arms in a cave called Ogof 
Dinas in the Vale of Gwent, where they will continue 
until England is self-abased, when they will sally forth, 
and, recognising their country's privileges, will fight for 
the Welsh, who shall be dispossessed of them no more 
until the Day of Judgment, when the earth shall be con- 
sumed with fire and so reconstructed that neither op- 
pression nor devastation shall take place any more, and 
blessed will he be who will see that time." 

Carte says that Owen wandered down to Hereford- 
shire in the disguise of a shepherd and found refuge 
in his daughter's house at Monnington. 

It is quite certain that in 141 5, Henry V., full of 
his French schemes and ambitions, and with no 
longer any cause to trouble himself about Wales, 
sent a special message of pardon to Glyndwr. Per- 
haps the young King felt a touch of generous admira- 
tion for the brave old warrior who had been the 
means of teaching him so much of the art of war 
and the management of men, and who, though alone 
and friendless, was too proud to ask a favour or to 
bend his knee. Sir Gilbert Talbot of Grafton, 
in Worcestershire, was the man picked out by 
Henry to accomplish this gracious act. Nothing, 
however, came of it immediately. Perhaps the 



304 Owen Glyndwr [1410- 

great campaign of Poitiers interfered with a mat- 
ter so comparatively trifling. But on the King's 
return he renewed it in February, 1416, commission- 
ing this time not only Talbot but Glyndwr's own 
son, Meredith, as envoys. Whether or no it would 
have even now and by such a channel been ac- 
ceptable is of no consequence, as the old hero was 
either dead or in concealment. Common sense in- 
clines to the most logical and most generally ac- 
cepted of the traditions which surround his last 
years, namely, the one which pictures him resting 
quietly after his stormy life at the home of one or 
other of his married daughters in Herefordshire. 
Monnington and Kentchurch both claim the honour 
of having thus sheltered him. Probably they both 
did, seeing how near they lie together, though the 
people of the former place stoutly maintain that it 
is in their churchyard his actual dust reposes. 

At Kentchurch Court, where his daughter Alice 
Scudamore lived with her husband, and which still be- 
longs to the family, a tower of the building is even 
yet cherished as the lodging of the fallen chieftain 
during part at any rate of these last years of ob- 
scurity. The romantic beauty of the spot, the sur- 
vival of the mansion and of the stock that own it, 
would make us wish to give Kentchurch everything 
it claims, and more, in connection with Glyndwr's 
last days. Above the Court, which stands in a hol- 
low embowered in woods, a park or chase climbs for 
many hundred feet up the steep sides of Garaway 
Hill, which in its unconventional wildness and en- 
tire freedom from any modernising touch is singu- 



1416] Last Years of OwetHs Life 305 

larly in keeping with the ancient memories of the 
place. The deer brush beneath oaks and yews of 
such prodigious age and size that some of them 
must almost certainly have been of good size when 
Thomas Scudamore brought Alice, the daughter of 
Owen of Glyndyfrdwy, home as a bride ; while just 
across the narrow valley, through which the waters 
of the Monnow rush swift and bright between their 
ruddy banks, the village and ruined castle of Gros- 
mont stand conspicuous upon their lofty ridge. It 
must in fairness to the claims of Monnington be re- 
membered that Grosmont was not precisely the ob- 
ject upon which Glyndwr, if he were still susceptible 
to such emotions, would have wished his fading eye- 
sight to dwell long, since of all the spots in Wales (and 
it is just in Wales, the Monnow being the boundary) 
Grosmont had been the one most pregnant, perhaps, 
with evil to his cause. For it was the defeat of 
Glyndwr's forces there that may be said to have 
broken the back of his rebellion. And as we stand 
upon the bridge over the Monnow midway between 
England and Wales, the still stately ruins of the 
Norman castle that must often have echoed to 
Prince Henry's cheery voice crown the hill beyond 
us ; while behind it the quaint village that rose upon 
the ashes of the town Glyndwr burnt, with all its 
civic dignities, looks down upon us, the very essence 
of rural peace. 

Glyndwr's estates had long ago been forfeited to 
the Crown and granted to John, Earl of Somer- 
set. Soon after his death Glyndyfrdwy was sold 
to the Salusburys of Bachymbyd and of Rug near 



3o6 Owen Glyndwr [i4io- 

Corwen, one of the very few alien families that in a 
peaceful manner had become landowners in North 
Wales before the Edwardian conquest. It is only 
recently indeed that there has ceased to be a Salus- 
bury of Rug. Owen's descendants, through his 
daughters, at any rate, are numerous. A few years 
after his death, Parliament, softening towards his 
memory, passed a special law for the benefit of his 
heirs, allowing them to retain or recover a portion of 
the proscribed estates. In consequence of this, Alice 
Scudamore made an effort to recover Glyndyfrdwy 
and Sycherth from-the Earl of Somerset apparently 
without success, so far as the former went, in view of 
the early ownership of the Salusburys. 

Of Grififith, the son who was so long a prisoner in 
the Tower in company with the young King of 
Scotland, we hear nothing more. But of Meredith 
this entry occurs in the Rolls of Henry V., 142 1 : 
" Pardon of Meredith son of Owynus de Glendordy 
according to the sacred precept that the son shall 
not bear the iniquities of the father." To another 
daughter of Glyndwr, probably an illegitimate one, 
Gwenllian, wife of Phillip ap Rhys of Cenarth, the 
famous bard, Lewis Glyncothi, wrote various poems, 
in one of which he says : " Your father was a potent 
prince, all Wales was in his council." 

No intelligent person of our day could regret the 
failure of Glyndwr's heroic effort. That Welshmen 
of the times we have been treating of should have 
longed to shake off the yoke of the Anglo-Norman 
was but human, for he was not only a bad master, 
but a foreigner and wholly antipathetic to the Celtic 



1416] Last Years of Owens Life 307 

nature. At the same time, the geographical ab- 
surdity, if the word may be permitted, of complete 
.independence was frankly recognised by almost 
every Welsh patriot from earliest times. The notion 
of a suzerain or chief king in London, as I have 
remarked elsewhere, was quite in harmony with the 
most passionate of Welsh demands. Glyndwr per- 
haps had other views ; but then the kingdom that 
he would fain have ruled, if the Tripartite Convention 
is to be relied on, stretched far beyond the narrow 
bounds of Wales proper and quite matched in 
strength either of the other two divisions which, 
under this fantastic scheme, Mortimer and Percy 
were respectively to govern. What was undoubtedly 
galling to the Welsh was the spectacle of a province 
to the north of the island, consisting, so far as the 
bulk of its power and civilisation was concerned, of 
these same hated Anglo-Normans, not only claiming 
and maintaining an entire independence on no basis 
that a Celt could recognise, but trafficking continu- 
ously with foreign enemies in a fashion that showed 
them to be destitute of any feeling for the soil of 
Britain beyond that part which they themselves had 
seized. To the long-memoried Welshman it seemed 
hard, and no doubt illogical, that these interlopers, 
one practically in blood and speech and feeling with 
their own oppressors, should thus be permitted to 
set up a rival independence within the borders of 
the island, while they on their part were forced to 
fuse themselves with a people who could not even 
understand their tongue and with whom they had 
scarcely a sentiment in common. It is difficult not 



3o8 Owen Glyndwr [Kio- 

to sympathise with the mediaeval Welshman in this 
attitude or to refrain from wondering at the strange 
turn of fortune that allowed the turbulent am- 
bition of some Norman barons to draw an artificial 
line and create a northern province, which their de- 
cendants, if they showed much vigour in its defence, 
showed very little aptitude for governing with reason- 
able equity. 

Glyndwr, it is true, had thrown off the old British 
tradition and had called in foreigners from across 
the sea, as Vortigern to his cost had done nearly a 
thousand years before. He had also adopted a 
French Pope. Neither had done him much good, 
and Welshmen were soon as ready as ever to fight 
their late brief allies for the honour of the island of 
Britain. But Glyndwr from an early period in his 
insurrection had kept the one aim, that of the inde- 
pendence of his country, dream though it might 
be, consistently in view. No means were to be 
neglected, even to the ruining of its fields and the 
destruction of its buildings, to obtain this end. How 
thoroughly he carried out his views has been suf- 
ficiently emphasised ; so thoroughly, indeed, as to 
cause many good Welshmen to refrain from wholly 
sharing in the veneration shown for his memory by 
the bulk of his countrymen. There can be but one 
opinion, however, as to the marvellous courage with 
which he clung to the tree of liberty that he had 
planted and watered with such torrents of human 
blood, till in literal truth he found himself the last 
leaf upon its shrunken limbs, and that a withered 
one. In the heyday of his glory his household bard 




Copyright Mrs. Leather. 

PORCH OF MONNINQTON CHURCH AND QLYNDWR'S REPUTED GRAV£. 



1416] Last Years of Owens Life 309 

and laureate wrote much extravagant verse in his 
honour, as was only natural and in keeping with the 
fancy of the period and of his class. But the Red 
lolo himself, in all likelihood, little realised the 
prophetic ring in the lines he addressed to his 
master on the closing of his earthly course, though 
we, at least, have ample evidence of their prescience: 

*' And when thy evening sun is set, 
May grateful Cambria ne'er forget 
Its morning rays, but on thy tomb 
May never-fading laurels bloom." 




CHAPTER XII 

CONCLUSION 

AS I have led up to the advent of Glyndwr with 
a rough outline of Welsh history prior to his 
day, I will now cast a brief glance at the 
period which followed. English people have a tend- 
ency to underestimate, or rather to take into small 
consideration, the wide gulf which, not only in former 
days, but to some extent even yet, divides the two 
countries. They are apt to think that after the 
abortive rising of Glyndwr, provided even this 
stands out clearly in their minds, everything went 
smoothly and Wales became merely a geographical 
expression with an eccentric passion for maintaining 
its own language. As, in the introduction to this 
book, I had to solicit the patience of the general 
reader and crave the forbearance of the expert for 
an effort to cover centuries in a few pages, so I 
must again put in a plea for another venture of the 
same kind — briefer, but none the less difificult. 

The ruin left by Glyndwr's war was awful. It 
was not only the loss of property, the destruction of 
buildings, the sterilisation of lands, but the quarrels 
and the blood-feuds which the soreness of these 

310 



Conclusion 311 



years of strife handed down for generations to the 
descendants of those who had taken opposing sides. 
And then before prosperity had fairly Hfted its 
head, before bloody quarrels and memories had 
been forgotten, the devastating Wars of the Roses 
were upon the country, and it was plunged once 
more into a chaos not much less distracting than 
that in which the preceding generation had wel- 
tered. 

Though, by a curious turn of events, she ultimately 
gave to England a Lancastrian king, Wales most 
naturally favoured the House of York. Edmund 
Mortimer, uncle to the young Earl of March, had 
shared the triumphs and the perils of Glyndwr's ris- 
ing. The blood of Llewelyn ap lorwerth flowed in 
the veins of the Mortimers, and their great estates 
lay chiefly in Wales and on the border. The old 
antagonism to Bolingbroke's usurpation, and the 
sympathy with Richard and his designated heir that 
half a century before accompanied it, were still re- 
membered. The Yorkists, however, had no mono- 
poly of Wales, — Welsh knights had fought vict- 
oriously in France under Henry V., and Marcher 
barons of Lancastrian sympathies could command 
a considerable following of Welshmen. The old 
confusion of lordship government still retained half 
Wales as a collection of small palatinates. Once 
more the castles that Glyndwr had left standing 
echoed to the bustle of preparation and the stir of 
arms, and felt the blows of an artillery that they 
could no longer face with quite the composure with 
which they had faced the guns of Henry the Fourth. 



312 Owen Glyndwr 

It was not so much the actual damage that was done, 
for this war was not so comprehensive, but rather 
the passions and faction it aroused among the Welsh 
gentry of both races, though this new faction no 
longer ran strictly upon racial lines. Nor, again, 
was it the amount of blood that was shed, for this 
compared to Glyndwr's war was inconsiderable, but 
the legacy, rather, of lawlessness that it left behind. 
Sir John Wynne of Gwydir, in the invaluable chron- 
icle which he wrote at his home in the Vale of Con- 
way during the reign of Elizabeth, draws a graphic 
picture of North Wales as Henry the Seventh found 
it. Sir John's immediate forbears had taken a brisk 
hand in the doings of those distracted times, and 
there were still men living when he wrote who had 
seen the close of the chaos with their own eyes, and 
whose minds were stored with the evidence of their 
fathers and grandfathers. Harlech in these wars 
stood once more a noted siege. It was held for the 
Lancastrians by a valiant Welshman against the 
Herberts, who made a somewhat celebrated march 
through the mountains to besiege it. The stout de- 
fence it offered inspired the music and the words of 
the Welsh national march, " Men of Harlech," — as 
spirited an air of its kind, perhaps, as has ever been 
written. The Vale of Clwyd, the garden of North 
Wales, was burnt, says Sir John, " to cold coals." 
Landowners who had mortgaged their estates, he 
goes on to tell us, scarcely thought them worth re- 
deeming, while the deer grazed in the very streets 
of Llanrwst. For two or three generations the 
country was infested by bands of robbers who found 



Conclusion 313 



refuge in the mountains of Merioneth or the wild 
uplands of the Berwyn Range, and fought for the 
privilege of systematically plundering and levying 
blackmail on the Vale of Conway and the richer 
meadows of Edeyrnion. Sir John's grandfather 
found it necessary to go to church attended by a 
bodyguard of twenty men armed to the teeth. " The 
red-haired banditti of Mawddy" kept the country 
between the Dovey and Mawddach estuaries and in- 
land nearly to Shropshire in a state of chronic ter- 
ror. The Carnarvon squires cherished blood-feuds 
that almost resembled a vendetta, laid siege to one 
another's houses, and engaged in mimic battles of a 
truly bloodthirsty description. The first Wynne of 
Gwydir left West Carnarvonshire and preferred to 
live among the brigands of the Vale of Conway 
rather than among his own relatives, since he would 
" either have to kill or be killed by them." To try and 
combat these organised bands of robbers, Edward 
IV. instituted, in 1478, the Court of the President 
and Council of the Marches of Wales, with summary 
jurisdiction over all breakers of the peace — pro- 
vided always that they could catch them ! The legal 
machinery of the lordships was wholly ineffectual, 
for though each petty monarch had the power of 
life and death, the harbouring of thieves and out- 
laws became a matter purely of personal rivalry and 
jealousy. 

But this epoch of Welsh history ended with the 
advent of the Tudors, which is in truth an even 
more notable landmark than the so-called conquest 
of Edward I. Wales since that time had been 



314 Owen Glyndwr 

governed as a conquered country, or a Crown province 
— she had been annexed but not united, nor had she 
been represented in Parhament, while outside the 
Edwardian counties justice was administered, or 
more often not administered, by two or three score 
of petty potentates. One must not, however, make 
too much of what we now call union and patriotism. 
Cheshire had been till quite recently an independent 
earldom, with similar relations to the Crown as the 
lordship, say, of Ruthin or of Hay. As regards na- 
tional feeling, it is very doubtful if the sentiments 
that had animated the heptarchy had been eradi- 
cated from that turbulent palatinate who boasted 
the best archers in England and were extremely 
jealous of their licentious independence. 

But it was a pure accident that in the end really 
reconciled the Welsh to a close union with the hated 
Saxon. Steeped as they were in sentiment, and 
credulous to a degree of mysticism and prophecy, and 
filled with national pride, the rise of the grandson of 
Owen Tudor of Penmynydd to the throne of Britain 
was for the Cymry full of significance. The fact, too, 
that Henry was not merely a Welshman but that he 
landed in Wales and was accompanied thence by a 
large force of his fellow-countrymen to the victorious 
field of Bosworth was a further source of pride and 
consolation to this long-harassed people. It would 
be hard indeed to exaggerate the effect upon Wales 
and its future relationship with England, when a 
curious chain of events elevated this once obscure 
princeling to the throne of England. It was strange, 
too, that it should be a Lancastrian after all whose 



Conclusion 315 



accession caused such joy and triumph throughout 
a province which had shed its blood so largely upon 
the opposing side. The bards were of course in ec- 
stasies ; the prophecy that a British prince should 
once again reign in London — which had faded away 
into a feeble echo, without heart or meaning, since 
the downfall of Glyndwr — now astonished with its 
sudden fulfilment the expounders of Merlin and the 
Brut as completely as it did the audience to whom 
they had so long foretold this unlikely consummation. 
Not for a moment, however, we may well believe, was 
such a surprise admitted nor the difference in the 
manner of its fulfilment. But who indeed would carp 
at that when the result was so wholly admirable ? It is 
not our business to trace the tortuous ways by which 
fate removed the more natural heirs to the throne and 
seated upon it for the great good of England as 
well as of Wales the grandson of an Anglesey squire 
of ancient race and trifling estate. 

That the first Tudor disappointed his fellow- 
countrymen in some of their just expectations, and 
behaved in fact somewhat meanly to them, is of no 
great consequence since his burly son made such 
ample amends for the shortcomings of his father. 
The matrimonial barbarities of Henry the Eighth 
and his drastic measures in matters ecclesiastical 
have made him so marked a personage that men for- 
get and indeed are not very clearly made to under- 
stand what he did for Wales, and consequently for 
England too. 

By an Act of ParHament in 1535 the whole of the 
Lordship Marcher system was swept away, and the 



3i6 Owen Glyndwr 

modern counties of Denbigh, Montgomery, Mon- 
mouth, Glamorgan, Brecon, and Radnor were formed 
out of the fragments. It is only possible to generalise 
within such compass as this. The precise details be- 
long rather to antiquarian lore and would be out of 
place here. It will be sufficient to say that the Welsh 
people of all degrees, after waiting with laudable 
patience for their first King to do something prac- 
tical on their behalf, petitioned Henry the Eighth to 
abolish the disorders under which half their country 
groaned and to grant that representation in Parlia- 
ment as yet enjoyed by no part of the Principality, 
and without which true equality could not exist. 
The King appointed a commission to carry out their 
wishes. The sources from which the new counties 
took their names, though following no rule, are 
obvious enough. Glamorgan, the old Morganwg, had 
been practically a County Palatine since Fitzhamon 
and his twelve knights seized it in Henry the First's 
time, that is to say, the inferior lordships were held 
in fealty, not each to the King as elsewhere, but to 
the heirs of Fitzhamon, who for many generations 
were the Clares, Earls of Gloucester, having their 
capital at Cardiff, where higher justice was adminis- 
tered. Pembroke was something of the same sort, 
though the Flemish element made it differ socially 
from Glamorgan. Nor must it be forgotten that 
that promontory of Gower in the latter palatinate was 
a Flemish lordship. But Pembroke was the actual 
property of the Crown and its earls or lords were 
practically constables. The rest of the Marches (for 
this term signified all Wales outside the Edwardian 



Conclusion 317 



counties) had no such definitions. That they followed 
no common rule was obvious enough. Brecon took 
its name from the old lordship of Brecheniog that 
Bernard de Newmarch had founded in Henry the 
First's time. The old Melynydd, more or less, be- 
came Radnor, after its chief fortress and lordship. 
Montgomery derived its shire name from the high- 
perched castle above the Severn, Monmouth from 
the town at the Monnow's mouth. Large frag- 
ments of the Marches, too, were tacked on to the 
counties of Hereford and Shropshire, the Welsh 
border as we know it to-day being in many places 
considerably westward of the old line. All the 
old lordship divisions with the privileges and re- 
sponsibilities of their owners were abolished, and 
the castles, which had only existed for coercive 
and defensive purposes, began gradually from 
this time to subside into those hoary ruins 
which from a hundred hilltops give the beautiful 
landscape of South Wales a distinction that is prob- 
ably unmatched in this particular in northern Europe. 
County government was uniformly introduced all 
over Wales and the harsh laws of Glyndwr's day, for 
some time a dead letter, were erased from the statutes. 
Parliamentary representation was allotted, though 
only one knight instead of two sat for a shire 
and one burgess only for all the boroughs 
of a shire ; and the two countries became 
one in heart as well as in fact. Till 1535 the eldest 
son of English Kings, as Prince of Wales, had 
been all that the name implies. Henceforth it 
became a courtesy title ; and one may perhaps be 



3i8 Owen Glyndwr 

allowed a regret, having regard to the temperament of 
a Celtic race in this particular, that our English 
monarchs have allowed it to remain so wholly 
divorced from all Welsh connection. The last actual 
Prince of Wales was Henry the Eighth's elder 
brother Arthur, who died at the then ofificial resi- 
dence of Ludlow Castle a few weeks after his mar- 
riage with Catherine of Aragon. 

This reminds me too that one peculiarity remained 
to distinguish the administration of Wales from that 
of England, namely that famous and long-lived in- 
stitution, the '* Court of the Marches." This has 
already been mentioned as introduced by Edward the 
Fourth, who was friendly to Wales, for the suppres- 
sion of outlaws and brigands. It was confirmed and 
its powers enlarged by Henry the Eighth's Act, and 
with headquarters at Ludlow, though sitting some- 
times at Shrewsbury and Chester, it was the appeal 
for all important Welsh litigation. Nor was it in 
any sense regarded as a survival of arbitrary treat- 
ment. On the contrary, it was a convenience to 
Welshmen, who could take cases there that people 
in North Yorkshire, for instance, would have to carry 
all the way to Westminster. For a long time, curi- 
ously enough, its jurisdiction extended into the 
counties of Worcester, Gloucester, Hereford, and 
Salop. It consisted of a president and council with 
a permanent staff of subordinate ofHcials. The 
presidency was an office of great honour, held 
usually by a bishop or baron of weight in the 
country, associated with the two justices of Wales and 
that of Chester. The arrangement seems to have 



Conclusion 319 



caused general satisfaction till the reign of William 
the Third, when the growth of industry and popul- 
ation made it advisable to divide Wales into circuits. 

The petitions addressed from the Welsh people 
to Henry praying for complete fusion with England 
are instructive reading. Marcher rule at the worst 
had been infamously cruel, at the best inconvenient 
and inequitable. It was a disgrace to the civilisation 
of the fifteenth century, which is saying a great deal. 
To bring criminals to justice was almost impossible 
when they had only to cross into the next lordship, 
whose ruler, being unfriendly perhaps to his neigh- 
bour, made it a point of honour to harbour those 
who defied him. The still martial spirit of the 
Welsh found vent when wars had ceased in petty 
quarrels, and with such a turbulent past it did them 
credit that they recognised how sorely even-handed 
justice was wanted among them. 

Lordship Marchers themselves were too often re- 
presented by deputies, and something like the abuses 
that were familiar in Ireland in more recent times 
owing to middlemen added to the confusion. 
According to local custom the humbler people of 
one lordship might not move eight paces from the 
road as they passed through a neighbouring territory. 
The penalty for transgression was all the money 
they had about them and the joint of one finger. 
If cattle strayed across the lordship boundary they 
could be kept and branded by the neighbouring lord 
or his representatives. 

In the aforesaid petitions sent up to Henry VIII. 
the petitioners dwell upon their loyalty to the throne 



320 Owen Glyndwr 

and the unhappy causes that had alienated them 
from it in the past. They remind him of how they 
fought in France for Edward III., and of their 
loyalty to Richard II., which was the sole cause, they 
declare, of their advocacy of Glyndwr. They indig- 
nantly declare that they are not " runaway Britons 
as some call us," but natives of a country which 
besides defending itself received all those who came 
to it for succour at the period alluded to. Resenting 
the imputation of barrenness sometimes cast on 
their country, they declare that "even its highest 
mountains afford beef and mutton, not only to our- 
selves, but supply England in great quantity." They 
recall the fact that they were Christians while the 
Saxons were still heathen. They combat those 
critics who describe their language as uncouth and 
strange and dwell on its antiquity and purity. If it 
is spoken from the throat, say these petitioners, 
" the Spanish and Florentines affect that pronun- 
ciation as believing words so uttered come from the 
heart." Finally, with presumably unconscious satire, 
they allude to the speech of the northern part of 
the island as " a kind of English." 

Henry accomplished these great reforms in the 
teeth of the baronial influence of the whole Marches, 
and if the slaughter of the Wars of the Roses had 
made his task somewhat easier, he should have full 
credit for achieving a piece of legislation whose im- 
portance as an epoch-marking event could hardly 
be exaggerated, not only as affecting Wales but the 
four powerful counties that adjoined it. 

To create and organise six new counties out of 



Conclusion 321 



chaos, to enfranchise and give representation to 
twelve, to permanently attach one of the three 
tributary kingdoms to the British Crown, is a per- 
formance that should be sufficient to lift the reign 
of a monarch out of the common run. Every 
schoolboy is familiar with the figure of Henry VIII. 
prancing in somewhat purposeless splendour on the 
Field of the Cloth of Gold. But who remembers 
the assimilation of Wales to England which was his 
doing ? 

Wales, though small in population, was numeri- 
cally much greater in proportion to England than is 
now the case. To-day she is a twentieth, then per- 
haps she was nearly a seventh, of the whole. It was of 
vital importance that her people should be satisfied 
and well governed. The accession of the Tudors 
and the common sense of their second monarch 
achieved without difficulty what might have been a 
long and arduous business. 

The palmy days of Elizabeth saw Wales, like 
England, advance by leaps and bounds. The native 
gentry, the tribesmen, the " Boneddigion," always 
pressing on the Norman aristocracy, now came again 
in wholesale fashion to the front. The grim castle 
and the fortified manor developed into the country 
house. Polite learning increased and the upper 
classes abandoned, in a manner almost too complete, 
the native tongue. The higher aristocracy, taking 
full and free part in English life, became by degrees 
wholly Anglicised, and the habit, though very gradu- 
ally, spread downwards throughout the whole gentry 
class. The Reformation had been accepted with 



32 2 Owen Glyndwr 

great reluctance in Wales. The people were con- 
servative by instinct and loyal to all such constituted 
authorities as they held in affection. They would 
take anything, however, for that very reason, from 
the Tudors, and swallowed, or partly swallowed, a 
pill that was by no means to their liking. In Eliza- 
beth's time the Bible and Prayer-Book were trans- 
lated into Welsh, which marked another epoch in 
the history of Wales much greater than it at first 
sounds. It was not done without opposition : the 
desire in official circles to stamp out the native 
language, which became afterward so strong, had 
already germinated, and it was thought that retain- 
ing the Scriptures and the Service in English would 
encourage its acquisition among the people. The 
prospects, however, in the actual practice did not 
seem encouraging, and in the meantime the souls of 
the Welsh people were starving for want of nourish- 
ment. The Welsh Bible and Prayer-Book proved 
an infinite boon to the masses of the nation, but it 
did more than anything else to fix the native tongue. 
Wales readily transformed its affection for the 
Tudors into loyalty for the Stuarts. The Church, 
too, was strong — the bent of the people being averse 
to Puritanism, and indeed nowhere in Britain did 
the survivals of popery linger so long as among the 
Welsh mountains. Even to-day, amid the uncon- 
genial atmosphere that a century of stern Calvinism 
has created, some unconscious usages and expres- 
sions of the peasantry in remoter districts preserve 
its traces. The Civil War found Wales staunch al- 
most to a man for the King. There were some 



Conclusion 323 



Roundheads in the English part of Pembroke, as 
was natural, and a few leading families elsewhere 
were found upon the Parliamentary side. Such of 
the castles as had not too far decayed were fur- 
bished up and renewed the memories of their stormy 
prime under circumstances far more injurious 
to their masonry. Harlech, Chirk, Denbigh, Con- 
way, and many others made notable defences. The 
violent loyalty of Wales brought down upon it the 
heavy hand of Cromwell, though himself a Welsh- 
man by descent. The landed gentry were ruined or 
crippled, and the prosperity of the country greatly 
thrown back. It is said that the native language 
took some hold again of the upper classes from the 
fact of their poverty keeping them at home, whereas 
they had been accustomed to flock to the English 
universities and the border grammar schools, such 
as Shrewsbury, Chester, or Ludlow. Welsh poetry 
and literature expended itself in abuse of that Puri- 
tanism which in a slightly different form was later 
on to find in Wales its chosen home. But in all this 
there was of course little trace of the old inter- 
national struggles. The Civil War was upon alto- 
gether different lines. The attitude of Wales was, 
in fact, merely that of most of the west of England 
somewhat emphasised. 

Smitten in prosperity, the Principality moved 
slowly along to better times in the wake of England, 
under the benevolent neutrality of the later Stuarts 
and of William and Anne. It still remained a great 
stronghold in outward things, at any rate, of the 
Church, and kept alive what Defoe, travelling there 



324 Owen Glyndwr 

in Anne's reign, calls " many popish customs," 
such as playing foot-ball between the services on 
Sunday, and retiring to drink at the public house, 
which was sometimes, he noted, kept by the parson, 
while even into the eighteenth century funeral pro- 
cessions halted at the crossroads and prayed for the 
soul of the dead. The Welsh landowning families 
were numerous and poor, proud of their pedigrees, 
which unlike the Anglo-Norman had a full thousand 
years for genealogical facts or fancies to play over. 
At the beginning of the eighteenth century there 
were very few wealthy landowners in Wales who 
stood out above the general level, which was perhaps 
a rude and rollicking one. There was no middle class, 
for there were neither trade nor manufactures worth 
mentioning, and little shifting from one class to an- 
other. Hence the genealogy was simple, and conse- 
quently, perhaps, more accurate than in wealthier 
societies. The mixture of English blood over most 
of the country was almost nil among the lower 
class, and not great even among the gentry. 

The peasantry still submitted themselves without 
question to their own social leaders, and the latter, 
though they had mostly abandoned their own lan- 
guage, still took a pride in old customs and tradi- 
tions, were generous, hospitable, quarrelsome, and 
even more addicted to convivial pleasures than their 
English contemporaries of that class. Defoe was at 
a cocking match in Anglesey and sat down to dinner 
with forty squires of the island. " They talked in 
English," he says, "but swore in Welsh." That 
the Welsh gentleman of the present day, unlike his 



Conclusion 325 



prototype of Scotland or Ireland, shows no trace worth 
mentioning of his nationality is curious when one 
thinks how much farther removed he usually is in 
blood from the Englishman than either. It should 
be remembered, however, that there were no seats of 
learning in Wales such as Ireland and Scotland pos- 
sessed. The well-to-do young Welshman went nat- 
urally to England for his education, even in days 
when difficulties of travelling were in favour of even 
indifferent local institutions. 

Surnames became customary in Wales about the 
time of the Tudor settlement ; previously only a few 
men of hterary distinction had adopted them, such 
as Owen Cyfylliog, Prince of Upper Powys, Dafydd 
Hiraethog, etc. The inconvenience of being distin- 
guished only by the names of his more recent ances- 
tors connected by "ab" or "ap " was found intolerable 
by the Welshman and his English friends as life got 
more complex. It is said that Henry VIII. was 
anxious for the Welsh landowners to assume the 
name of their estates in the old Anglo-Norman fash- 
ion, and it is a pity his suggestion was not followed, 
in part at any rate. But the current Christian name 
of the individual was adopted instead and saddled 
for ever on each man's descendants. So a language 
full of euphonious place-names and sonorous sounds 
shows the paradox of the most inconveniently limited 
and perhaps the poorest family nomenclature in 
Europe. 

In 1735, just two hundred years after its complete 
union with England, began the movement that was in 
time to change all Wales, I had almost said the very 



326 Owen Glyndwr 



Welsh character itself. This was the Methodist re- 
vival. All Welshmen were then Church people. 
The landed families for the most part supplied the 
parishes with incumbents, grouping them no doubt 
as much as possible so as to create incomes sufficient 
for a younger son to keep a humble curate and ruf- 
fle it with his lay relatives over the bottle and in the 
field. The peasantry may have been cheery and 
happy, but they were sunk in ignorance. They 
seem, however, to have been good churchgoers — the 
old instinct of discipHne perhaps surviving — but the 
spiritual consolation they received there was lamenta- 
bly deficient, and the Hanoverian regime was making 
matters steadily worse. Its political bishops rarely 
came near their Welsh dioceses. All the higher 
patronage was given to English absentees, for the 
poor Welsh squires could be of little political service 
and had no equivalent wherewith to pay for a dean- 
ery or a canon's stall. To be a Welshman, in fact, 
was then, and for more than a century later when 
the landed class had nearly ceased to enter the 
Church, of itself a bar to advancement. The mental 
alertness and religious fervour, however, of the 
Welsh people had only lain dormant under circum- 
stances so discouraging, and were far from dead. 
They presented a rare field for the efforts of the re- 
ligious reformer, though it seems more than likely 
that the beauty and ritual of an awakened AngHcan 
Church would have appealed to their natures more 
readily even than the eloquence of the Calvinistic 
school that eventually led them captive. The Welsh 
people were imaginative, reverential, musical. Their 



Conclusion 327 



devotion to the old faith in both its forms was suffi- 
ciently shown by the pathetic fidelity with which 
they clung to their mother churches till, both physi- 
cally and mentally, they tumbled about their ears. 

The Methodist revivalists of the eighteenth cent- 
ury were, as everyone knows, for the most part 
Churchmen. Many of them were in orders, valiant 
and devoted men, who not only preached in the 
highways and hedges, but founded schools all over 
Wales, whose peasantry at that time were almost 
without education. They suffered every kind of 
persecution and annoyance from the Church, while 
the country clergy headed mobs who treated them 
with physical violence. No effort was made to meet 
this new rival upon its own grounds, — those of minis- 
terial energy and spiritual devotion, — but its expon- 
ents were met only with rotten eggs. The bishops 
were not merely absentees for the most part, but 
from 1700 to 1870 they were consistently English- 
men, ignorant of the Welsh tongue, and regarded in 
some sort as agents for the Anglicising of Wales. 
Men who with some exceptions were destitute of 
qualifications for their ofifice found themselves in 
positions that would have taxed abilities of the 
highest order and all the energies of a modern pre- 
late. The holders of Welsh sees laid neither such 
slender stocks of ability nor energy as they might 
possess under the slightest contribution on behalf of 
Welsh reHgion. With the funds of the Church, 
however, they observed no such abstention, but sad- 
dled the needy Welsh Establishment with a host of 
relatives and friends. As for themselves, with a few 



328 Owen Glyndwr 

notable exceptions they cultivated a dignified leisure, 
sometimes at their palaces, more often in London 
or Bath. One prelate never saw his diocese at all, 
while another lived entirely in Cumberland. With 
the Methodist revival one could not expect them to 
sympathise, nor is it surprising that their good 
wishes were with the militant pot-house parsons who 
were in favour of physical force. One must remem- 
ber after all, however, that this was the Hogarthian 
period ; that in all these features of life England was 
at its worst ; and that the faults of the time were 
only aggravated in Wales by its aloofness and its 
lingual complications. The Welsh Methodist, it is 
true, did not formally leave the Church till 181 1, 
but by that time Calvinism had thoroughly taken 
hold of the country, and the Establishment had not 
only made no spiritual efforts to stem the tide, but 
was rapidly losing even its social influence, as the 
upper classes were ceasing to take service in its 
ranks. The Welsh parson of indifferent morals and 
lay habits had hitherto generally been of the land- 
owning class. Now he was more often than not of a 
humbler grade without any compensating improve- 
ment in morals or professional assiduity. The im- 
mense development of dissent in Wales during the 
last century is a matter of common knowledge. The 
purifying of the Welsh Church and clergy in the latter 
half of it and the revival of Anglican energy within 
the last quarter are marked features of modern Welsh 
life. We have nothing to do here with the probabili- 
ties of a success so tardily courted. But it is of pertin- 
ent interestto considerthe immense changes that have 



Conclusion 329 



come over Wales since, let us say, the middle of the 
Georgian period ; and by this I do not merely mean 
those caused by a material progress common to the 
whole of Great Britain. For there is much reason to 
think that the character of the Welsh peasantry has 
been steadily altering, particularly in the more thor- 
oughly Welsh districts, since they fell under the in- 
fluence of Calvinistic doctrines. There is much 
evidence that the old Welshman was a merry, light- 
hearted person, of free conversation and addicted to 
such amusements as came in his way ; that he still 
had strong military instincts,* and cherished feudal 
attachments to the ancient families of Wales even 
beyond the habit of the time among the English. 
This latter instinct has died hard, considering the 
cleavage that various circumstances have created be- 
tween the landed gentry and the peasantry. Indeed 
it is by no means yet dead. 

The drift of the native tongue, too, since Tudor 
times has been curious. Its gradual abandonment 
by the landed gentry from that period onwards, with 
the tenacity with which their tenants for the most 
part clung to it, is a subject in itself. The resistance 
it still offers in spots that may be fairly described as 
in the very centre of the world's civilisation is prob- 
ably the most striking lingual anomaly in Europe. 
Its disappearance, on the other hand, in regions in- 
tensely Welsh is worthy of note. Radnorshire, for 
instance, penetrating the very heart of the Princi- 
pality, populated almost wholly by Cymry, forgot 



* Recent events have demonstrated that this spirit is still far from 
extinct. 



330 Owen Glyndwr 

its Welsh before anyone now living can remember. 
Bits of Monmouth, on the other hand, long reckoned 
an English county, still use it regularly. It is the 
household tongue of villagers in Flint, who can see 
Liverpool from their windows, while there are large 
communities of pure Celts in Brecon and Carmarthen 
who cannot even understand it. 

The great coal developments in South Wales have 
wholly transformed large regions and brought great 
wealth into the country, and replaced the abundant 
rural life of Glamorgan and its ancient families, 
Welsh and Norman, with a black country that has 
developed a new social life of its own. Slate quarry- 
ing has proved a vast and profitable industry among 
the northern mountains, while thousands of tourists 
carry no inconsiderable stream of wealth across the 
Marches with every recurring summer. But neither 
coal-pits, nor quarries, nor tourists make much im- 
pression on the Welsh character such as it has become 
in the North, more particularly under the influence of 
Calvinism, and very little upon the language which 
fifty years ago men were accustomed to regard as 
doomed. 

The history of Welsh land since the time of the 
Tudor settlement is but that of many parts of Eng- 
land. Wales till this century was distinguished for 
small properties and small tenancies. There were 
but few large proprietors and few large farmers. In 
the matter of the former particularly, things have 
greatly altered. The small squires who lived some- 
what rudely in diminutive manor-houses have been 
swallowed up wholesale by their thriftier or bigger 



Conclusion 331 



neighbours, but the general and now regretted tend- 
ency to consolidate farms scarcely touched Wales, 
fortunately for that country. Save in a few excep- 
tional districts it is a land of small working farmers, 
and in most parts the resident agricultural labourer 
as a detached class scarcely exists. 

Few countries in the world contain within the 
same area more elements of prosperity and happiness 
than modern Wales, and fewer still are so fortunately 
situated for making the most of them. Coal, iron, 
slate, and other minerals in great abundance are vigor- 
ously exported and give work and good wages to a 
large portion of the population. In the rural districts 
a thrifty peasantry are more widely distributed over 
the soil, to which they are peculiarly attached, than in 
almost any part of Britain, and occupied for the 
most part in the more hopeful and less toilsome of 
the two branches of agriculture, namely, that of stock- 
breeding. Surrounded on three sides by the sea, 
there are ready facilities for the trader, the sailor, or 
the fisherman. The romantic scenery of the country 
is another valuable asset to its people and brings an 
annual and certain income that only one small corner 
of England can show any parallel to. Education is 
in an advanced state, while the humbler classes of 
society have resources due to their taste for music and 
their sentiment for their native language, which have 
no equivalent in English village life. 

Even those strangely constituted minds that like 
to dig up racial grievances from the turmoil of the 
Middle Ages, when right and might were synonymous 
words the world over, and profess to judge the 



332 Owen Glyndwr 

fourteenth century by the ethics of the nineteenth, 
must confess that the forced partnership with Eng- 
land has had its compensations. The reasonable 
Welshman will look back rather with much complais- 
ance on the heroic and prolonged struggle of his 
ancestors against manifest destiny, remembering 
always that the policy of the Norman kings was 
an obvious duty to themselves and to their realm. 
Had the Ireland of that day, with its larger 
fighting strength and sea-girt territory, possessed 
the national spirit and tenacious courage of Wales, 
who knows but that she might have vindicated 
her right to a separate nationality by the only test 
admissible in mediaeval ethics, that of arms ? Geo- 
graphy at any rate in her case was no barrier to an 
independent existence, and there would have been 
nothing illogical or unnatural in the situation. But 
geography irrevocably settled the destiny of Wales, 
as it eventually did that of Scotland. If the condi- 
tions under which Wales came into partnership 
were different and the date earlier, that, again, was 
partly due to its propinquity to the heart of England. 
Yet with all these centuries of close affinity to Eng- 
land, the Welsh in many respects — I had almost said 
in most — have preserved their nationality more suc- 
cessfully than the Celts of either Ireland or the 
North, and in so doing have lost nothing of such 
benefits as modern civilisation brings. 



■ 



APPENDIX 

THE BARDS 

TH E Bards as a class were so deeply interwoven 
with the whole life of ancient Wales and, though 
long shorn of most of their official glory, played 
so prominent a part in the rising of Glyndwr, that it 
seems desirable that a chapter touching on the sub- 
ject should be included in this book. Within such lim- 
its the subject can only be treated in the most general 
and elementary manner. Yet such treatment is ex- 
cusable from the fact that the slenderest and most 
inefficient description of Welsh song and Welsh sing- 
ers must contain matter unknown to most English 
readers. I imagine that few of these would resent 
being asked to divest their minds of the time-hon- 
oured notion that the teaching of the Druids was no- 
thing but a bloodthirsty and barbarous superstition. 
At any rate, Bardism and Druidism being practically 
the same thing, one is obliged to remind those read- 
ers who may never have given the matter any atten- 
tion at all, that among the ancient Britons of the 
Goidel stock who inhabited most of Wales and the 
West previous to the Cymric immigration, Druid- 
ism was the fountain of law, authority, religion, and, 

333 



334 Appendix 

above all, of education. The Druids, with their three 
orders, were a caste apart for which those who were 
qualified by good character and noble birth to do so, 
laboriously trained themselves. They decided all 
controversies whether public or private, judged all 
causes, from murder to boundary disputes, and ad- 
ministered both rewards and punishments. Those 
who ventured to defy them were excommunicated, 
which was equivalent to becoming moral and social 
lepers. 

The three oraers were known as Druids, Bards, 
and Ovates. The first were priests and judges, the 
second poets ; the third were the least aristocratic, 
practised the arts and sciences, and were, moreover, a 
probationary or qualifying order through which can- 
didates for the other two, who were on the same level 
of dignity, had to pass. As everyone knows, there 
was an Arch-Druid of the Isle of Britain who had his 
sanctuary in Anglesey. But it is a matter of much 
less common knowledge how close was the con- 
nection between the Druids and Christianity in the 
Roman period and even afterwards. The Romans, 
with conquest foremost in their minds, most naturally 
aimed at the native rulers of the people and made 
these bardic orders the objects of their special at- 
tack. Their slaughter on the banks of the Menai as 
described by Tacitus, and the destruction of the 
Sacred Groves of Mona, are among our familiar 
traditions. 

The Druid orders fled to Ireland, Brittany, and 
elsewhere. But in time, when the Romans, strong 
in their seats, grew tolerant, the exiles returned and 



The Bards 335 

quietly resumed, in West Britain at any rate, some, 
thing like their old positions. 

When Christianity pushed its way from the West 
into the island, the bardic orders, unable to resist it, 
seem by degrees to have accepted the situation and 
to have become the priests of the new faith, as they 
had been the custodians and expounders of the old. 
This transition was the less difficult seeing that the 
Druids preached all the ordinary tenets of morality, 
and the immortality of the soul. To what extent the 
early Christianity of western Britain was tainted 
with the superstition of the Druids is a question upon 
which experts have written volumes, and it need not 
detain us here. A notable effort was made in the 
fourth century to merge Christianity, so to speak, in 
the old British faith, and Morgan or Pelagius, " sea- 
born," of Bangor Iscoed was the apostle of this at- 
tempted reaction. He left the island about a.d. 400, 
and his converts in what we now call Wales were 
numerous and active. The movement is historically 
known as the " Pelagian heresy " and has some ad- 
ditional importance from the number of ecclesiastics 
that came from over the sea for the purpose of 
denouncing it. 

But all this is rather the religious than the secular 
side of Bardism, the leading feature of whose teach- 
ing in pre-Roman days had been the committal to 
memory of its literature, both prose and verse. 
Writing was discountenanced, as the possession of 
these stores of learning thus laboriously acquired 
were a valuable asset of the initiated. Three was 
the mystic number in the recitation of all axioms 



336 Appendix 

and precepts, for many of these were committed to 
writing later on in the seventh and tenth centuries, 
and are now familiar as the Welsh "Triads." 

The bards, as a lay order, remained of great im- 
portance. In the laws of Howel Dda (tenth cent- 
ury) the royal bard stands eighth among the 
officers of the State. The fine for insulting him 
was six cows and twenty silver pennies. His value 
was 126 cows, his land was free, and he had the use 
of a house. His noblest duty was to sing " The 
Monarchy of Britain " at the head of his chieftain's 
army when victorious. The number of songs he 
had to sing to the King and Queen respectively dur- 
ing the social hours was clearly defined, as were his 
claims upon each. Among the latter was a speci- 
fied portion of the spoils of war, a chessboard made 
from the horn of a sea-fish from the King, and a ring 
from the Queen. It was the business of the bards, 
moreover, to preserve genealogies, and they were 
practically tutors to the rising generation of the 
aristocracy. Every family of position in Wales had 
its domestic bard, while below these there were a 
great number of strolling minstrels who visited the 
dwellings of the inferior people, from whom they ex- 
acted gifts of money (" cymmorthau " ) as well as 
free quarters. 

In treating of individual and well-known bards 
one naturally turns for a beginning to the sixth 
century, when that famous quartet, Taliesin, Merd- 
dyn, Aneurin, and Llywarch Hen, flourished. Sev- 
eral poems either actually their work or purporting 
to be so are extant. To linger over a period so dim, 



The Bards 337 

however great the names that adorn it, would be out 
of place here. That all four were great kings of 
song in their time is beyond doubt. The legends 
that distinguish them are comparatively familiar : 
how Taliesin was found floating in a leather bottle 
in Prince Elphin's salmon weir near Aberdovey, how 
Merddyn as a boy astonished the advisers of Vorti- 
gern and became his good angel, and how Llywarch 
Hen, at a hundred and fifty years of age, witnessed 
the slaughter of the last of his four-and-twenty sons 
in battle against the Saxons. His poem on the 
death of Cynddylan, Prince of Powys, seizes the 
imagination, not so much from the description thepoet- 
warrior gives of the death of his friend and his own 
sons in a decisive combat which he himself took 
part in, but from the almost certain fact that from 
the top of the Wrekin he saw the Saxons destroy 
and sack Uriconium (" the white town "), whose 
ruins are such a striking feature among the sights 
of Shropshire. 

From these four giants until 1080 there is little 
left whereby to judge of the merits of the bards, and 
no great record of their names. That they sang and 
played and gave counsel and kept genealogies is be- 
yond question, but it was not till after the Norman 
conquest of England that they began to leave much 
behind them in the way of written documents. 

When Prince Griffith ap Kynan returned from 
Ireland to Wales and the poet Meilir arose to sing 
his triumphs and good qualities, a new era in bardic 
history may be said to have commenced. The in- 
tellectual and religious revival that distinguished the 



338 Appendix 

twelfth century in Western Europe was conspicuous 
in Wales. The bards were no longer singing merely 
of battles, but of nature and kindred subjects, with 
a delicacy that showed them to be men of taste and 
culture. In the twelfth, thirteenth, and fourteenth 
centuries, in spite of war and conquest, the age was 
a golden one in Welsh song. Between eighty and 
ninety bards of this period have left poems behind 
them as a witness of their various styles and merits, 
while there are no literary remains whatever of very 
many who are known to have been quite famous in 
their day. Thousands, too, of popular songs must 
have existed that the jealousy of the composers or, 
more probably, the price of parchment consigned to 
oblivion. 

"When the literary revival of this period reached 
Wales, its people," says Mr. Stephens in the Literature 
of the Kymri, " were better prepared than their neigh- 
bours for intellectual effort." " An order of bards ex- 
isted, numerous and well disciplined ; a language in all 
its fullness and richness was in use among all classes of 
people, and as a necessary consequence their literature 
was superior, more copious, and richer than that of any 
contemporaneous nation. The fabulous literature so 
prized by others was in no great repute, but gave way to 
the public preference for the more laboured and artistic 
productions of the bards." 

Several Welsh Princes of commanding character 
and unusual ability came to the front in the long 
struggle with the Norman power, and were no 
unworthy sources of bardic inspiration. Many of 
them aspired themselves to literary as well as mar- 



The Bards 339 

tial fame, of whom Owain Cyfeiliog, Prince of 
Upper Powys, was the most notable. Poetry 
was in high repute. Eisteddfodau were held period- 
ically with much ceremony and splendour, and were 
sometimes advertised a year in advance, not only 
throughout Wales but in Ireland and other portions 
of the British Islands. Not poetry alone but liter- 
ature generally and music, of course, both vocal 
and instrumental, were subjects of competition, 
while Rhys ap Tudor, a long-lived and distinguished 
Prince of South Wales, revived, after a sojourn in 
Brittany, the system of the Round Table. To Eng- 
lishmen the long list of bards who adorned the 
period between the Norman arrival and Glyndwr's 
rising would be mere names, but even to those who 
may only read the works of the most notable in 
translations, they are of great interest if only as a 
reflection of life and thought at a time when Eng- 
land and English were still almost silent. 

Gwalchmai, the son of a distinguished father, Mei- 
lir, already mentioned, was among the first of the 
revived school, whose work is regarded by Celtic 
scholars as of the first quality. His love of nature is 
prominent in many of the poems he has left : 

" At the break of day, and at evening's close, 
I love the sweet musicians who so fondly dwell 
In dear, plaintive murmurs, and the accents of woe ; 
I love the birds and their sweet voices 
In the soothing lays of the wood." 

Owain Gwynedd was the hero-king of Gwalchmai's 
day. His repulse of an attack made by Henry the 



340 Appendix 

Second's fleet under the command of an unpatriotic 
Prince of Powys in Anglesey is the subject of the 
bard's chief heroic poem : 

" Now thickens still the frantic war, 
The flashing death-strokes gleam afar, 
Spear rings on spear, flight urges flight, 
And drowning victims plunge to-night 
Till Menai's over-burthened tide, 
Wide-blushing with the streaming gore. 
And choked with carnage, ebbs no more ; 
While mail-clad warriors on her side 
In anguish drag their deep-gash'd wounds along, 
And 'fore the King's Red chiefs are heap'd the 
mangled throng." 

Owain Cyfeiliog, a Prince of Powys in the end of 
the twelfth century, though a noted warrior, is a 
leading instance of a royal bard. His chief poem^ 
The Hirlds Horn (drinking-cup), is famous wher- 
ever Welsh is spoken : 

" This horn we dedicate to joy ; 
Then fill the Hirlas horn, my boy, 
That shineth like the sea, 
Whose azure handles tipped with gold 
Invite the grasp of Britons bold, 
The sons of liberty." 

This is one of the longest poems of the twelfth 
century. The scene is the night after a battle, and 
the Prince with his warriors gathered round him in 
the banqueting-hall sends the brimming cup to each 
of his chieftains successively and enumerates their 



The Bards 341 

respective deeds. A leading incident in the poem is 
when Owen, having eulogised the prowess of two 
favourite warriors in glowing terms, turns to their 
accustomed seats, and, finding them vacant, suddenly 
recalls the fact that they had fallen in the battle of 
the morning : 

" Ha ! the cry of death — And do I miss them ! 
O Christ ! how I mourn their catastrophe ! 
O lost Moreiddig — How greatly shall I need thee ! " 

A most suggestive poem by another Prince is a 
kind of summary of his progress through his do- 
minions from the Ardudwy mountains, 

" Fast by the margin of the deep 
Where storms eternal uproar keep," 

to the hills above Llangollen where he proposes " to 
taste the social joys of Yale." This is Howel, the 
illegitimate son of Owain Gwynedd, who seized and 
held for two years his father's kingdom. Though 
so strenuous a warrior, his poems are rather of love 
and social life. He sings with much feeling of the 
joys of Wales ; her fair landscape, her bright waters 
and green vales, her beauteous women and skim- 
ming seagulls, her fields clothed with tender trefoil, 
her far-reaching wilds, and plenteousness of game. 
Himself a successful stormer of castles, there is some- 
thing richly suggestive in the action of a man laying 
down the torch and bloody sword and taking up the 
pen to describe his havoc : 

" The ravens croaked and human blood 
In ruddy streams poured o'er the land ; 



342 Appendix 

There burning houses war proclaimed ; 
Churches in flames and palace halls ; 
While sheets of fire scale the sky, 
And warriors ' On to battle ! ' cry." 

Then the author wholly changes his mood : 

" Give me the fair, the gentle maid, 
Of slender form, in mantle green ; 
Whose woman's wit is ever staid, 
Subdued by virtue's graceful mien. 
Give me the maid, whose heart with mine 
Shall blend each thought, each hope combine ; 
Then, maiden fair as ocean's spray, 
Gifted with Kymric wit's bright ray, 
Say, am I thine ? 
Art thou then mine ? 
What ! silent now ? 
Thy silence makes this bosom glow. 
I choose thee, maiden, for thy gifts divine ; 
'T is right to choose — then, fairest, choose me thine." 

There is much misunderstanding as to the fashion 
in which the bards were treated by Edward the First. 
During war the leading minstrels were naturally 
identified with the patrons whose banners they 
followed and whose praises they sang; but the 
statement that they were put to death as bards rests 
on wholly secondary authority and seems doubtful. 
Stringent laws were certainly made against the lower 
order of minstrels who wandered homeless through 
the country, but they seem to have been devised as 
much for the protection of the common people, who 
were called on to support them, as against the men 



The Bards 343 

themselves, who were regarded by the authorities as 
mendicants and idlers. The superior bards, who kept 
strictly to the houses of the great, were probably 
not often interfered with. These, though they had 
regular patrons and fixed places of abode, made ex- 
tended tours from time to time in which there seems 
to have been no special distinction between North 
and South Wales. The hatred of the bards towards 
England was a marked feature of their time, and 
was so consistent that though many Welsh princes, 
in their jealousy, lent their swords, as we have seen, 
to the invader, no bards, so far as one knows, turned 
against their countrymen. For generations they 
prided themselves in being intellectually superior to 
the Saxon. They also saw, after the Norman con- 
quest, the English race despised and held down by 
their conquerors, and a species of serfdom in use 
among the Saxons which had no prototype in their 
own country. The ordinary bards, however, had be- 
yond all doubt sacrificed much of their old independ- 
ence and become the creatures of their patrons and 
ready to sell their praises for patronage. Even the 
respectable Meilir confesses : 

" I had heaps of gold and velvet 
From frail princes for loving them." 

Llewelyn the Great, the second, that is to say, of the 
three Llewelyns, aroused the enthusiasm of Bardic 
literature and was the subject of much stirring 
eulogy : 

" None his valour could withstand, 
None could stem his furious hand. 



344 Appendix 

Like a whirlwind on the deep, 
See him through their squadrons sweep. 
Then was seen the crimson flood, 
Then was Offa bathed in blood, 
Then the Saxons fled with fright, 
Then they felt his royal might. 

Dafydd Benvras, the author of this stanza, left many 
poems, and later on Griffith ap Yr Ynad Goch wrote 
what is regarded as among the finest of Welsh odes, 
on the death of the last Llewelyn, laying the blame 
of that catastrophe on the wickedness of his country- 
men : 

" Hark how the howling wind and rain 
In loudest symphony complain ; 
Hark how the consecrated oaks. 
Unconscious of the woodman's strokes. 
With thundering crash proclaim he 's gone, 
Fall in each other's arms and groan. 
Hark ! how the sullen trumpets roar. 
See ! how the white waves lash the shore. 
See how eclipsed the sun appears. 
See ! how the stars fall from their spheres, 
Each awful Heaven-sent prodigy, 
Ye sons of infidelity ! 
Believe and tremble, guilty land. 
Lo ! thy destruction is at hand." 

After the Edwardian conquest in 1284 the note of 
the bards sensibly softened and attuned itself much 
more generally to love and nature. The song-birds 
particularly were in great request as recipients of 
poetic addresses and confidences. 



The Bards 345 

" And thou, lark, 
Bard of the morning dawn, 
Show to this maid 
My broken heart." 

While the same singer, Rhys Goch, describes thus the 
light tread of his ladylove : 

" As peahens stride in sun-ray heat, 
See her the earth elastic tread ; 
And where she walks, neath snow-white feet 
Not e'en a trefoil bends its head. 

The latter part of the 14th century was extremely 
prolific in poetry which, with some notable excep- 
tions, is regarded rather as showing a good general 
level than as producing any masterpieces. Dafydd 
ap Gwilym, the Welsh Ovid, is of course a striking 
exception. Over 250 of his poems are preserved, 
while Lewis Glyncothi, Gutyn Owain, lolo Goch, 
Glyndwr's bard, and two or three more have left be- 
hind them something like 3CX) others. Dafydd ap 
Gwilym, who was buried at Strata Florida, holds one 
of the highest places in Cymric literature. It is as a 
love poet that he is chiefly distinguished, but his love 
of nature and his own beautiful country finds sole ex- 
pression in many of his productions. His ode to 
Fair Glamorgan, written from "the heart of wild, 
wild Gwynedd," asking the summer to be his 
messenger, is regarded as one of his best. In trans- 
lation it is interesting as a contemporary picture, 
though a poetic one, of the richest Welsh province. 

" Radiant with corn and vineyards sweet, 
And lakes of fish and mansions neat, 



34^ Appendix 

With halls of stone where kindness dwells, 
And where each hospitable lord 
Heaps for the stranger guest his board, 
And where the generous wine-cup swells, 
With trees that bear the luscious pear, 
So thickly clustering everywhere. 
Her lofty woods with warblers teem, 
Her fields with flowers that love the stream. 
Her valleys varied crops display. 
Eight kinds of corn and three of hay ; 
Bright parlour with her trefoiled floor ! 
Sweet garden, spread on ocean shore." 

Quotations have already been made in the body 
of this book from lolo Goch's ode to Glyndwr, and 
throughout the Wars of the Roses Lewis Glyncothi, 
Gutyn Owain, and Tudor Aled continued to sing of 
contemporary events. 

The leading charge against Cymric poetry is that 
it is too prone to elaborate the mere art of versifica- 
tion at the expense of fire and animation. Allit- 
eration was of course the chief method of ornament, 
though the rhyming of the terminal syllable was by 
no means always ignored. But, speaking generally, 
skill in the arrangement of words according to cer- 
tain time-honoured conventions occupied more than 
an equitable share in the making of Welsh verse. A 
tendency to put mere sound above feeling and emo- 
tion did much to cramp it, and often forced it into man- 
nerisms and affectations that would rather destroy 
than enhance the intrinsic merits of a composition. 

" Beyond all rhetorical ornaments," says Giraldus Cam- 
brensis, " they preferred the use of alliteration and that 



The Bards 34/ 

kind more especially which repeats the first letters or 
syllables of words. They made so much use of this 
ornament in every finished discourse that they thought 
nothing elegantly spoken without it." 

Mr. Stephens, by way of illustration, points out 
poems by the greater bards which from the first line 
to the last commence with the same letter. He also 
attributes the extraordinary elaboration in structure 
with which fashion was prone to cumber Welsh 
poetry to a desire for increasing the difficulties of 
composition and in consequence the exclusiveness of 
the bardic order. It is not surprising that in a 
country where war was the chief 'business of life it 
should be by far the favourite subject of the minstrel, 
particularly when one remembers that the celebration 
of his employer's exploits or intended exploits was 
the chief source of the domestic poet's livelihood- 
The wars of Glyndwr stirred again the old fighting 
note which after the Edwardian conquest had given 
way in a great measure to gentler themes. The old 
laws against the bards, enunciated by Edward I., 
now for long a dead letter, were renewed, but after 
this final submission of Wales it is doubtful if they 
continued to have much meaning, particularly amid 
the chaos of the ensuing Wars of the Roses, when 
the bards most certainly did their full share of singing. 

I have said nothing of the music which both in early 
and mediaeval Wales played such a prominent part 
in the national life. The harp was always the true 
national instrument, though the pipe or bagpipe was 
well known and in frequent use ; but it was never 



348 Appendix 

really popular, as in Ireland and Scotland, and this 
was surely a valuable testimony to the superior cult- 
ure of the Welsh musicians. Griffith ap Kynan, 
King of North Wales about 1 100, already men- 
tioned, introduced it into the Eisteddfod as the 
result of his Irish education. The pipes had hitherto 
been forbidden, and the result at the celebrated 
Eisteddfod at Caerwys was that Griffith's prize of a 
silver pipe went to a Scotsman. The Welsh, in short, 
despised the instrument. Lewis Glyncothi has 
left an amusing satire on a piper. He finds himself 
in Flint at an English marriage, where the guests 
would have none of him or his harp, but " bawled 
for Will the Piper, low born wretch " who comes for- 
ward as best he may, " unlike a free enobled man." 

" The churl did blow a grating shriek, 
The bag did swell, and harshly squeak, 
As does a goose from nightmare crying, 
Or dog crushed by a chest when dying, 
This whistling box's changeless note 
Is forced from turgid veins and throat ; 
Its sound is like a crane's harsh moan, 
Or like a gosling's latest groan." 

Giraldus, half Welshman himself, writing after his 
extended tour through Wales, about 1200, with 
Archbishop Baldwin, says : 

" The strangers who arrived in the morning were en- 
tertained until evening with the conversation of young 
women and with the music of the harp, for in this coun- 
try almost every house is provided with both. Such an 
influence had the habit of music on the mind and its 



The Bards 349 

fascinating powers, that in every family or in every tribe, 
they esteemed skill in playing on the harp beyond any 
kind of learning. Again, by the sweetness of their musi- 
cal instruments they soothe and delight the ear. They 
are rapid yet delicate in their modulation, and by the 
astonishing execution of their fingers and their swift 
transitions from discord to concord, produce the most 
pleasing harmony." 

The part-singing of the Welsh seems also to have 
greatly struck Giraldus in contrast to the unison in 
which he heard the musicians of other nations 
perform. 

To draw the line between the bard and musician 
would be of course impossible. Many writers of 
verse could only declaim ; some could sing to their 
own accompaniment. The mass of musicians, how 
ever, we may take it, belonged to the lower grade of 
wandering bards, who played first, as we have seen, 
upon the national instrument, the harp, as well as 
upon the pipe and "crwth " (a kind of rude violin). 

The tone of morality was certainly not high among 
the mediaeval Welsh bards. They had long lost all 
touch with the order of the priesthood, and indeed 
monks and poets had become almost as a matter of 
course inimical to one another. The latter, too, 
maintained a steady hatred of the Saxon that was al- 
most creditable, seeing how often their masters, for 
the sake of interest or revenge, took up arms against 
their fellow-countrymen. 

It is sufficiently difficult merely to touch, and that 
in the slightest manner, so vast a subject as this. 
In recognising the insufficiency of such an attempt, 



350 Appendix 

I am almost thankful that the period of Glyndwr and 
the succeeding turmoil of the Wars of the Roses puts 
a reasonable limit to my remarks. For it goes with- 
out saying that when Wales settled down under the 
Tudors to its happy and humdrum existence, the 
martial attitude of the bards as feudal appanages 
and national firebrands altogether ceased. Welsh 
poets hereafter were private individuals, their song 
ceased for the most part to be of war ; nor was the 
Saxon or the Lloegrian any longer an object of in- 
vective. The glory of this new United Britain to 
which they belonged was not without its inspiration, 
but it has been by no means a leading note in Welsh 
verse, which, speaking generally, has since in this 
particular sung upon a minor key. 





INDEX 



Aber, 60, 72 
Aberdaron, 201, 264-269 
Aberffraw, 25 
Abergavenny, 143 
Abergavenny, Lord of, 227 
Aberystwith, 231, 284-293 
A Court, Sir Francis, 262, 286 
Adam of Usk, 130, 133, 150, 

156, 159, 163 
Albans, St., 193 
Anarawd, 20 
Anglesey, 70, 71, 75, 127, 135, 

217, 218, 279 
Anne, Queen, 323 
Arundel, Earl of, 99, 177, 298 
Arvon, cantref of, 295 
Asaph, St., 66 
Audley, Lord, 68, 86, 216 
Augustine, St., 8, 9, 10 
Avignon Pope, the, 234, 269-271, 

299 

B 

Baldwin, Archbishop, 48 

Bangor, 57, 75, 148, 299 

Bangor Iscoed, 6 

Bardolph, Earl, 252, 264, 268 

Bards, the, 123, [34, 143, 163 

Bardsey, Isle of, 53 

Barmouth, 118 

Beauchamp, Earl of Warwick, 

195, 229, 290 
Beaufort, Earl, 128 
Beaumaris, 279 
Berkeley, James, Lord, 290 



Berkhampstead, 170, 180 
Berkrolles, Sir A., 231 
BerkroUes, Sir Laurence, 281- 

283 
Berwick, 203, 204 
Bifort, Llewelyn, 234, 251, 252, 

279, 299 
Blanche, Princess, 168, 169 
Bleddyn ap Cynvyn, 85 
Bolde, John, 148-152, 219 
Bramham Moor, battle of, 268 
Bran the Blessed, 232 
Brecon, 36, 142, 193, 194, 221, 

317 
Breiddon Hills, 17 
Bristol, 212 ; sailors of, 220, 

287, 288 
Brith, David, 134 
Bromfield, Lordship of, 106 
Browe, Sir Hugh, 141 
Bryn Owen, battle of, 245 
Brynsaithmarchog, 157 
Builth, 152 



Cader Idris, 141 
Cadvan, King, 16 
Cadwallader, 231 
Cadwgan of the battle-axe, 260 
Caer Drewyn, 122, 144 
Caerleon, 2, 215, 245 
Caerphilly, 215-217, 245 
Canterbury, Archbishop of, 73, 

79 
Cardiff, 214, 215, 316 
Cardigan, 5, 71, 79, 142, 149, 152 



351 



352 



Index 



Carew, Thos., Earl, 191, 192 


,202 


Dafydd ap Llewelyn, 61-65 


Carmarthen, 28, 71, 79, 142, 


152, 


Dafydd ap Owen Gwynedd, 47 


191, 192, 197, 198, 212- 


-217, 


Dafydd ap Sinion, 232 


256, 287 




Danbury church, 164 


Carnarvon, 78, 86, 128, 


139. 


Danes, the, 17, 28 


148, 190, 247 




Daron, David, Dean of Bangor, 


Carnarvon, Record of, 240, 


287, 


251, 252, 264, 279 


301 




David, St., 5 


Carte, 303 




David's, St., 12, 28, 33, 48, 80 


Charles, King of France, 


224, 


Dean, Forest of, 287 


225 




Dee River, 88, 91, 122 


Charltons, the, 146, 217, 


229, 


Defoe, 323, 324 


230, 297 




Deganwy Castle, 57, 64 


Cheshire, 315 




Deheubarth, description of, 14 


Chester, i, 28, 32, 43, 44, 


135, 


Denbigh, 72, 118, 135, 141, 323 


140, 143, 144, 177. 203, 


210, 


Denbigh County, 78 


302, 318 




Deorham, 6 


Chirk, 44, 87, 106, 155, 323 




Despencer, Lady, 217, 242-244 


Clares, the, 316 




Dinas Bran, 86, 87, 107, 118 


Clear's, St., 191 




Dolbadarn Castle, 66, 157, 301 


Clwyd, Vale of, 18-20, 77, 


135, 


Dolgelly, 141, 223 


312 




Dolwyddelan 56, 301 


Coed Eulo, 43 




Doncaster, 125 


Coity Castle, 37, 231, 259, 


260, 


Don, Henry, 190, 225 


275 




Douglas, Lord, 181, 182, 203- 


Colwyn, 98 




2C^, 264 


Colwyn ap Tangno, 232 




Dovey, the, 142, 143 


Conway, 52, 61, 64-66, 75-78, 


Durham, 125 


97, 98, 138-140, 218, 219, 


323 


Dynevor Castle, 185, 190, 202 


Cornwall, Sir John, 217 




Dysanni River, 280 


Cornwall, conquest of, 16 






Corwen, 44, 106, 122 




E 


Courtenay, Richard, 291 




Courtenays, the, 214 






Craig-y-dorth, battle of, 229 


Eadgar, King, 26 


Creton, M., 121 




Edeyrnion, Vale of, 102, 123, 


Criccieth Castle, 62, 190, 219 


240 


Croesau Common, 11 1 




Edinburgh, 126 


Crofts, 104 




Edward I., 67, 69-71, 75, 78, 


Cunedda, 5 




79. 213 


Cwm Hir Abbey, 53, 145 




Edward II., 80 


Cymmer Abbey, 166 




Edward III., 285 


Cynddylan, 7 




Edward IV., 313 



Cynllaeth, 88 
Cyrnwigen, 223 

D 

Dafydd ap Griffith, 71, 72, 74, 76 
Dafydd ap Gwilim, 149, 235 



Einion, 34, 35 
Eleanor, Queen, 80 
Elen, Glyndwr's mother, 88 
Elfreton, Henry de, 138 
Elizabeth, Queen, 321 
Elizabeth Scudamore, 105 
Ellis, Sir Henry, i8y 



Indt 



ex 



353 



Eltham, palace of, 242 

Emma, wife of Dafydd ap Owen 

Gwynedd, 47 
Emma, wife of Lord Audley, 86 
Ethelfred, King, 10 



Faireford, John, 193 
Fitzhamon, 35-37, 316 
Flemings, the, 40, 41, 144, 145 
Flint, 43, 45, 78, 98, 99, 330 
France, Charles, King of, 224, 

225, 299 
Franciscans, their plot, 169 



Gam, Davy, 221-223, 298, 302 

Gascoine, Judge, 252 

Giraldus Cambrensis, 11, 47- 
52, 215 

Glamorgan 33-35. I75, 214, 
245, 246, 251, 252, 259, 277, 
278, 303, 316-330 

Gloucester, Earl of, 75, 291, 318 

Glyncothe, Lewis, 306 

Glyndwr, his birth, and legends 
connected with it, 82, 83 ; as a 
popular hero, 84 ; descent, 87, 
88 ; place of birth, 89 ; first 
recorded appearance, 90 ; his 
designation, 91 ; his youth, 
92, 93 ; esquire to Boling- 
broke, 94 ; supposed adher- 
ence to Richard II., 95, 99 ; 
home life, 100-103 I wife and 
family, 104, 105 ; estate and 
hospitality, 106, 107 ; quarrel 
with Grey of Ruthin, 112 ; 
refused a hearing, 113 ; further 
persecution by Grey, 114, 115 ; 
attacked by Earls Grey and 
Talbot and escapes, 120 ; heads 
the Welsh forces, 122 ; support- 
ed by the bards, 123 ; declared 
Prince of Wales, 124 ; eludes 
King Henry's forces, 127 ; ex- 
cluded from pardon, 128 ; win- 
ters at Glyndyfrdwy, 131, 132 ; 



attitude towards Hotspur and 
Prince Henry, 135, 136; turns 
his army southwards, 138 ; 
occupies Plinlimmon, 142, 143; 
gains a victory at Mynydd 
Hyddgant, 144 ; ravages South 
and Mid-Wales, 145, 146 ; 
creates panic in England, 147; 
frustrates Henry's second inva- 
sion, 149, 150 ; all-powerful 
in Wales, 151 ; goes to Carnar- 
von, 152 ; meeting with Hot- 
spur, 153, 154 ; winters again 
at Glyndyfrdwy, 155 ; at- 
tempts the capture of Harlech, 
156 ; captures Grey and ran- 
soms him, 156-158 ; sends 
letters to Scotland and Ire- 
land, 159, 160 ; destroys St. 
Asaph, 164 ; adventure with 
Howel Sele, 165-168 ; leaves 
North Wales, 170 ; battle of 
Pilleth and capture of Ed- 
mund Mortimer, 171, 172 ; de- 
vastates Glamorgan, 175 ; his 
doings in Carnarvonshire, 176 ; 
attacks west coast castles, 177; 
established reputation as a 
magician, 178 ; baffles Henry's 
third attempt to crush him, 
180; marries his daughter to 
Mortimer, 183 ; his affairs 
prospering, 185 ; invests west 
coast castles, 188 ; his houses 
at Sycherth and Glyndyfrdwy 
destroyed by Prince Henry, 
186-188 ; activity in South 
Wales, igo ; captures Car- 
marthen, 191 ; checked by 
Carew, 192 ; creates alarm in 
England, 193 ; consults a 
soothsayer, 197 ; meditates in- 
vasion of England, 198 ; col- 
lision with the Percys, 201 ; 
causes of his absence from bat- 
tle of Shrewsbury, 202 ; visits 
North Wales, 209 ; invades 
H[erefordshire, 211 ; bafHes 
Henry again, 211-214 ; takes 
border castles, 215 ; receives 



354 



Index 



Gly ndwr — Continued. 

aid from the French, 217 ; his 
Anglesey troops, 218 ; attacks 
Carnarvon, 218 ; captures Har- 
lech, 220 ; holds a parliament 
at Machynlleth, 221 ; arrests 
Davy Gam, 222 ; holds a 
council at Dolgelly, 223 ; sends 
envoys to the King of France, 
224 ; letter to Henry Don, 

225 ; active on the Marches, 

226 ; defeat at Mynydd-cwm- 
du and victory at Craig-y- 
dorth, 229 ; holds court at 
Llanbadarn and Harlech, 231- 
234 ; situation in 1405, 237- 
242 ; attempt to carry off the 
young Earl of March, 242 ; 
victory at Pant-y-vi^enol, 245 ; 
defeat at Grosmont, 247 ; de- 
feat at Pwll-Melyn and death 
of his brother, 249 ; sends en- 
voys to the North, 250 ; his 
supposed wanderings, 252, 
253 ; summons a parliament 
to Harlech, 254 ; meets his 
French allies at Tenby, 255 ; 
marches to Worcester, 256- 
258 ; retreats to Wales, 259 ; 
his magic art again, 260 ; dis- 
satisfied with the French, 261 ; 
secures exemption money from 
Pembroke, 262 ; signs the tri- 
partite indenture at Aberda- 
ron, 264-268 ; his famous 
letter to the King of France, 
269-273 ; his fortunes sensi- 
bly viraning, 276 ; traditions 
of his wanderings, 280-283 ; 
movements uncertain, 284 ; 
relieves Aberystwith, 291 ; still 
active but no longer the same 
terror to England, 294 ; loses 
Harlech and Aberystwith, 295 ; 
his family captured, 296 ; his 
fortunes sink, 300 ; relapses 
gradually into a mere outlaw, 
302 ; legends concerning his 
wanderings, 303 ; offered par- 
don by Henry V., 303 ; claims 



of Monnington and Kent- 
church as scene of his death, 
307 ; estimate by Welshmen of 
his position, 308 

Glyndwr's Mount, 103 

Glyndyfrdwy, 88, 91, 100, 104, 
106, 120, 122, 128, 131, 186- 
190, 198 

Gower, 197 

Grendor, Sir John, 145, 184, 259, 
290 

Grenowe ap Tudor, 127 

Grey, Reginald, Earl of Ruthin, 
109-124, 154-159, 172, 173 

Grey, Richard, Earl de, 177 

Griffith ap Dafydd, 115-118 

Griffith ap Llewelyn I., 28, 30, 

31 
Griffith ap Llewelyn II., 53, 68 
Griffith ap Madoc, 85-87 
Griffith, Sir John, 252 
Griffith, son of Glyndwr, 165, 

233, 249, 275, 306 
Griffith y Baron Gwyn, 88 
Grosmont, 246, 247, 304 
Gutyn, Owen, 235 
Gwenllian, illegitimate daughter 

of Glyndwr, 306 
Gwent, 303 
Gwynedd, description of, 13 

H 

Hall, 258, 259 
Hanard, Jankyn, 190 
Hanmer, family of, 104, 105 
Hanmer, Griffith, 128 
Hanmer, John, 224 
Hardyng, Chronicle of, 154-159, 

173. 174, 179 

Harlech, 78, 156, 186, 190, 219, 
220, 231-233, 262, 275, 2S7, 
288, 293, 295, 296, 323 

Harold, 29 

Haverford-west, 41, 255 

Hebog, Moel, 280 

Henry I., King, 40 

Henry II., King, 42-45 

Henry III., 59-66 



Index 



355 



Henry IV., 93, 94, 121, 125-131, 
136-140, 147-151. 154, 157, 
158, 168-170, 177-181, 185, 
200-207, 210-214, 230, 241- 
244, 256-61, 278, 284-292, 298, 
302 

Henry VII., 314 

Henry VIII., 315, 319, 325 

Henry, Prince, 117, 121, 125, 
128, 135-137, 148, 185-190, 
198, 202, 205, 210, 227, 240- 
247, 259, 276, 278, 284-295, 
302. 303 

Herbert, Lord, 232 

Hereford, 193-195, 212-214, 
226, 250, 251, 256, 257, 287, 
288, 295, 317 

Heytely field, 204 

Higham Ferrers, 200 

Hoare, Sir R. C, t68 

Holinshead, 164, 204 

Holt Castle, 87 

Homildon, battle of, 181, 182 

Hopkyn ap Thomas, 198 

Hotspur, 131, 135-137, 139-142, 
I53> 154, 181, 182, 203-207 

Hovvel ap Edvvy, 28 

Howel ap Owen Gwynedd, 45, 46 

Howel Dda, 21-24 

Howel Sele, 165-168 

Howel Vychan, 219 

Hugueville, Sire de, 255-258 



lago ap Idwal, 28 

lestyn, 38 

Innocent, Pope, 58 

lolo Goch, 100-102, 124, 163, 

208, 234, 283, 309 
lolo Morganwg MSS., 245, 

281, 294 
Isabel, daughter of Glyndwr, 

105, 129 
Isabella of France, 126 



Janet Crofts, Glyndwr's daugh- 
ter, 105 
Jevan ap Meredith, 254 



Joan, wife of Llewelyn II., 56, 

60, 62 
Joanna of Brittany, 168, 183 
John, King, 56, 57 
John ap Howel, 276 

K 

Katherine, wife of Edmund Mor- 
timer, 233, 296 

Kentchurch, 304 

Kidwelly, 191 

Kingeston, Archdeacon, 195,196, 
226, 227 



Lacy, Earl of Lincoln, 135 

Lampadarn, 186, 275 

Lampeter, 152 

Leget, David, 134 

Leicester, 125 

Leland, 189 

Leominster, 211 

Lilleshall, 177 

Lincoln, 177 

Lionel, son of Edmund Morti- 
mer, 296 

Lichfield, 177, 202 

Llanbadarn, 28, 224, 231 

Llandilo, 76, 185 

Llandovey, 152, 185 

Llanfaes Abbey, 60 

Llangollen, 102, 123, 280 

Llanrwst, 25, 61, 312 

Llansantffraid, 172 

Llansilin, loi, 127 

Llewelyn ap Griffith, last Prince 
of North Wales, 65-72 

Llewelyn ap lorwerth. Prince 
of North Wales, 55-60 

Llewelyn ap Madoc, 86, 87 

Llewelyn ap Seisyllt, Prince of 
North Wales, 27, 28 

Llewelyn of Cayo, 150 

Lleyn, promontory of, 53, 217 

Lloid, John, 134 

Llywarch, Hen, 7 

London, 80 

Ludlow, 177, 318 



356 



Index 



Lupus, Hugh, Earl of Chester, 

32, 33 
Lussan, Mme. de, 255 

M 

Machynlleth, 220-225, 269 
Madoc ap Griffith, 85 
Madoc ap Meredith, 80 
Madoc ap Owen Gwynedd, 46 
Maelgwyn, Prince of Gwynedd, 

232 
Maidstone, 244 
Manorbier Castle, 41, 47 
March, Earl of, 170, 242 
Margaret Monnington, Glyn- 

dwr's daughter, 105 
Matthew of Paris, 74 
Melynydd, 317 
Meredith, son of Glyndwr, 105, 

233, 276, 304, 306 
Meredith ap Owen, 118 
Merioneth, 78, 215, 287, 301, 313 
Milford, 254, 255 
Monmouth, 259, 317, 330 
Monnington, 104, 303-305 
Monnow River, 246 
Montgomery, 32, 146, 177, 317 
Morgan of Coity, 37 
Mortimer, Earl of, 87 
Mortimer, Sir Edmund, 106, 

170-172, 183, 184, 200, 201, 

232, 242, 287, 296 
Mortimer, Sir Ralph, 65 
Mynydd-cwm-du, battle of, 229 
Mynydd-Hyddgant, battle of, 

144 

N 

Nannau, 165-168 
Nevin tournament, 80 
Newcastle, 126 
Newmarch, Bernard de, 36 
Newport, 215, 245 
Newport, Sir Edward, 247 
Northampton, 125, 193, 294 
Northumberland, Earl of, 199, 

200, 201, 209, 251, 252, 264- 

269, 279 
Nottingham, 177 



O 

Offa, King of Mercia, 8, 13, 19 
Ogof Dinas, 303 
Oldcastle, Sir John, 290 
Oswestry, loi, 116 
Owen ap Griffith, 65, 66 
Owen Cyfeiliog, 85 
Owen Gwynedd, 42-45 
Oxford, 133, 134 



Pant-y-wenol, 245 
Pauncefote, John, 216 
Pembroke, 40, 41, 262, 316 
Pengwern, 7 
Penmynydd, 138, 314 
Pennal, 269 
Pennant, 143, 257 
Perfeddwlad, the, 54, 57, 67, 71 
Pilleth, battle of, 171, 181 
Plinlimmon, 142, 143 
Pontefract, 99, 125 
Powys, description of, 14 
Powys Castle, 146 
Pulestone, 128 

R 

Radnor, 142, 317, 329 
Radnor, New, 145 
Rhondda valley, 260 
Rhuddlan, 19, 32, 43, 78, 190 
Rhys ap Gethin, 171, 190, 233, 

246, 247 
Rhys ap Griffith, 2S9 
Rhys ap Jevan, 234 
Rhys ap Tudor, 33 
Rhys Ddu, 298 
Rhys Dwy, 234 
Richard II., 93-99, 121, 203 
Rieux, Jean de, 255 
Robert ap Jevan, 234 
Roderic the Great, 15, 16 
Rug, 306 

Ruthin, 106, 107, no, ill, 156 
Rutland, Lord, 152 



Salisbury, Earl of, 95, 96 - /2/-> 
Salusburys of Rug, 305 -•sob" 



Index 



357 



Scott, Sir Walter, i68 
Scrope, Archbishop, 252 
Scrope, Sir Henry, 216 
Scrope and Grosvenor trial, 89 
Scudamore, Alice, 104, 304 
Scudamore, Philip, 298 
Shakespeare, r8i 
Shrewsbury, 7, 58, 68, 77, 125- 

128, 177, 198-202, 297, 318 
Shrewsbury, Abbot of, 205 
Shrewsbury, battle of, 203-209 
Shropshire, 226, 229, 317 
Simon de Montfort, 68 
Skidmore, 194 
Snowdon, 70, 76, 128, 158, 172, 

222 
Somerset, Earl of, 306 
Stafford, Lord, 206 
Stanley, Sir John, 254 
Stove, Morres, 134 
Strata Florida Abbey, 149, 152, 

291 
Strathclyde, 19, 20 
Strongbow, Gilbert de, 286 
Sycherth, 100-103, 120, 128, 

188, 190, 198, 306 



Talbot, Earl of, 120 

Talbot, Gilbert, 247, 295, 303 

Tenby, 41, 256 

Thomas, Prince, 177 

Thomas ap Llewelyn, 80 

Towy, Vale of, 278, 279 

Towyn, 280 

Trefgarn, 89 

Tren, 8 

Trevor, Bishop of St. Asaph, 

113, 164, 165, 225, 226, 234, 

249, 299 
Tripartite Indenture, 201 
Tudor, Glyndwr's brother, 90, 

218, 233, 249 
Tudor, Owen, 314 



Tudor, William and Rhys, 138- 

.140, 233, 252 
Turberville, 38 
Tutbury, 230 



U 



Uriconium, 2, 7 
Usk, 215, 245 

V 

Valle Crucis Abbey, 52, 85, 280 
Vychan, Griffith, Glyndwr's 

father, 82, 88, 89 
Vychan, Roger, 222 

W 

Warren, Earl, 87 
Warwick, Earl of, 178 
Waterton, Hugh de, 195, 242 
Welshpool, 146, 177, 217, 229, 

290, 297 
Whitmore, David, 254 
William III., 323 
William Rufus, 34 
William the Conqueror, 33 
Winchester, 77 
Windsor Castle, 298 
Woodbury hill, 257 
Worcester, 210, 227, 228, 252, 

256, 278 
Worcester, Percy, Earl of, 152, 

205, 206 
Wynne, Sir John, of Gwydir, 

312, 313 



Yale, Lordship of, 106 
Yonge, Griffith, 224, 234 
York, 77, 206, 251 
York, Duke of, 214, 227, 242, 
244, 290, 293 



Heroes of the Nations. 



EDITED BY 



EVELYN ABBOTT, M.A., 

Fellow of Balliol College, Oxford. 



A Series of biographical studies of the lives and work 
of a number of representative historical characters about 
whom have gathered the great traditions of the Nations 
to which they belonged, and who have been accepted, in 
many instances, as types of the several National ideals. 
With the life of each typical character will be presented 
a picture of the National conditions surrounding him 
during his career. 

The narratives are the work of writers who' are recog- 
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the special requirements of the several subjects. The 
volumes will be sold separately as follows: 

Large 12°, cloth extra $i 50 

Half morocco, uncut edges, gilt top . . • I 75 



HEROES OF THE NATIONS. 

A series of biographical studies of the lives and work of 
certain representative historical characters, about whom have 
gathered the great traditions of the Nations to which they 
belonged, and who have been accepted, in many instances, as 
types of the several National ideals. 

The volumes will be sold separately as follows : cloth extra, 
$1.50 ; half leather, uncut edges, gilt top, $1.75. 

The following are now ready : 



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R. L. Fletcher. 
PERICLES. By Evelyn Abbott. 
THEODORIC THE GOTH. By 

Thomas Hodgkin. 
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY. By H. R. 

Fox-Bourne. 
JULIUS CiESAR. By W. Warde 

Fowler. 
WYCLIF, By Lewis Sergeant. 
NAPOLEON. By W. O'Connor Mor- 
ris. 
HENRY OF NAVARRE. By P. F. 

Willert. 
CICERO. By J. L. Strachan-David- 

son, 
ABRAHAM LINCOLN. By Noah 

Brooks, 
PRINCE HENRY (OF PORTUGAL) 

THE NAVIGATOR. By C. R. 

Beazley. 
JULIAN THE PHILOSOPHER. By 

Alice Gardner. 
LOUIS XIV. By Arthur Hassall. 
CHARLES XII. By R. Nisbet Bain. 
LORENZO DE' MEDICI. By Ed- 
ward Armstrong. 
JEANNE D'ARC. By Mrs. Oliphant. 
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS. By 

Washington Irving. 



ROBERT THE BRUCE. By Sir 

Herbert Maxwell. 
HANNIBAL. By W. O'Connor Mor- 
ris. 
ULYSSES S. GRANT. By William 

Conant Church. 
ROBERT E. LEE. By Henry Alex- 
ander White. 
THE CID CAMPEADOR. By H. 

Butler Clarke. 
SALADIN. By Stanley Lane-Poole. 
BISMARCK. ByJ. W. Headlam. 
ALEXANDER THE GREAT. By 

Benjamin I. Wheeler. 
CHARLEMAGNE. By H. W. C. 

Davis. 
OLIVER CROMWELL. By Charles 

Firth. 
RICHELIEU. By James B. Perkins. 
DANIEL O'CONNELL, By Robert 

Dunlop. 
SAINT LOUIS (Louis IX. of France). 

By Frederick Perry. 
LORD CHATHAM. By Walford 

Davis Green. 
OWEN GLYNDWR. By Arthur G. 

Bradley. $1.35 net. 
HENRY V. By Charles L. King-.- 

ford. $1.35 net. 
EDWARD I. By Edward Jenks. 

$1.35 net. 



Other volumes in preparation are : 



MOLTKE. By Spencer W^ilkinson. 
JUDAS MACCAB.ffiUS. By Israel 

Abrahams. 
SOBIESKI, By F. A. Pollard. 
ALFRED THE TRUTHTELLER. 

By Frederick Perry. 
FREDERICK 11. By A. L. Smith. 



MARLBOROUGH. By C. W. C. 

Oman. 
RICHARD THE LION-HEARTED. 

By T. A. Archer. 
WILLIAM THE SILENT. By Ruth 

Putnam. 
JUSTINIAN. By Edward Jenks. 



(.}. P. PUTNAM'S SONS, Publishers. New York and London. 



The Story of the Nations. 



Messrs. G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS take pleasure in 
announcing that they have in course of publication, in 
co-operation with Mr. T. Fisher Unwin, of London, a 
series of historical studies, intended to present in a graphic 
manner the stories of the different nations that have 
attained prominence in history. 

In the story form the current of each national life is 
distinctlj^ indicated, and its picturesque and noteworthy 
periods and episodes are presented for the reader in their 
philosophical relation to each other as well as to universal 
history. 

It is the plan of the writers of the different volumes to 
enter into the real life of the peoples, and to bring them 
before the reader as they actually lived, labored, and 
struggled— as they studied and wrote, and as they amused 
themselves. In carrying out this plan, the myths, with 
which the history of all lands begins, will not be over- 
looked, though these will be carefully distinguished from 
the actual history, so far as the labors of the accepted 
historical authorities have resulted in definite conclusions. 

The subjects of the different volumes have been planned 
to cover connecting and, as far as possible, consecutive 
epochs or periods, so that the set when completed will 
present in a comprehensive narrative the chief events in 
the great Story of the Nations ; but it is, of course, 
not always practicable to issue the several volumes in 
their chronological order. 



THE STORY OF THE NATIONS. 



12° Cloth, each . 
Leather, each 

The following are now ready 

GREECE. Prof. Jas. A. Harrison. 
ROME. Arthur Gilman. 
THEJE'WS. Prof. James K. Hosmer. 
CHALDEA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
GERMANY. S. Baring-Gould. 
NORWAY. Hjalmar H. Boyesen. 
SPAIN. Rev. E. E. and Susan Hale. 
HUNGARY. Prof. A. Vdmb6ry. 
CARTHAGE. Prof. Alfred J. Church. 
THE SARACENS. Arthur Gilman. 
THE MOORS IN SPAIN. Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
THE NORMANS. Sarah Orne Jewett. 
PERSIA. S. G. W. Benjamin. 
ANCIENT EGYPT. Prof. Geo. Raw- 

linson. 
ALEXANDER'S EMPIRE. Prof. J. 

P. Mahaffy. 
ASSYRIA. Z. A. Ragozin, 
THE GOTHS. Henry Bradley. 
IRELAND. Hon. Emily Lawless. 
TURKEY. Stanley Lane-Poole. 
MEDIA, BABYLON, AND PERSIA. 

Z. A. Ragozin. 
MEDI/EVAL FRANCE. Prof. Gus- 

tave Masson. 
HOLLAND. Prof. J. Thorold Rogers. 
MEXICO. Susan Hale. 
PHCENICIA. Geo. Rawlinson. 
THE HANSA TOWNS. Helen Zim- 

mern. 
EARLY BRITAIN. Prof. Alfred J. 

Church. 
THE BARBARY CORSAIRS. Stan- 
ley Lane-Poole. 
RUSSIA. W. R. Morfill. 
THE JEWS UNDER ROME. W. D. 

Morrison, 
SCOTLAND. John Mackintosh, 
SWITZERLAND. R. Stead and Mrs. 

A. Hug. 
PORTUGAL. H. Morse-Stephens. 
THE BYZANTINE EMPIRE. C. W. 

C. Oman. 
SICILY. E. A. Freeman. 
THE TUSCAN REPUBLICS, Bella 

Duffy. 
POLAND. W^. R. Morfill. 
PARTHIA. Geo. Rawlinson. 



11,50 

1-75 



JAPAN, David Murray. 

THE CHRISTIAN RECOVERY OF 

SPAIN. H,E, Watts. 
AUSTRALASIA. Greville Tregar- 

then 
SOUTHERN AFRICA. Geo. M. 

THEAL. 
VENICE. Alethea Wiel. 
THE CRUSADES. T. S. Archer and 

C. L. Kingsford. 
VEDIC INDIA. Z. A. Ragozin. 
BOHEMIA. C. E. Maurice. 
CANADA. J. G. Bourinot. 
THE BALKAN STATES. William 

Miller. 
BRITISH RULE IN INDIA, R. W. 

Frazer. 
MODERN FRANCE. Andr6 Le Bon. 
THE BUILDING OF THE BRITISH 

EMPIRE. Alfred T. Story. Two 

vols. 
THE FRANKS. Lewis Sargeant. 
THE ■WEST INDIES. Amos K. 

Fiske. 
THE PEOPLE OF ENGLAND IN 

THE 19TH CENTURY. Justin 

McCarthy, M.P. Two vols. 
AUSTRIA, THE HOME OF THE 

HAPSBURG DYNASTY, FROM 

1282 TO THE PRESENT DAY. 

Sidney 'Whitman. 
CHINA. Robt, K, Douglass. 
MODERN SPAIN. Major Martin A. 

S. Hume. 
MODERN ITALY. Pietro Orsi. 
THE THIRTEEN COLONIES. 

Helen A. Smith. Two vols. 

Other volumes in preparation are : 

THE UNITED STATES, 1775-1897. 

Prof, A. C. McLaughlin. Two 

vols. 
BUDDHIST INDIA. Prof. T. W. 

Rhys-Davids, 
MOHAMMEDAN INDIA. Stanley 

Lane-Poole. 
WALES AND CORNWALL. Owen 

M. Edwards. 



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